Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

CPS pilots after-school arts program

Cincinnati Public Schools is piloting an after-school program featuring the arts.  These high energy sessions can't help but keep the kids attention.

This is just the warm-up for the one-hour arts program at Hughes Center. After school, four days a week with alternating artists, kids get to experience something they may not have. On this day it's the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and actress Jesse Wray Goodman.

"It's funny, you'll watch them and at first they'll be very shy and just kind of, like, murmur their names and whatever but then pretty soon, we've got them moving. We've got them shaking and they come back and play more."

Sophomore Alex Folson says it takes a lot of courage to participate.

"And just putting yourself out there and giving it your all. Sometimes people are still shy but by the time this is over, everybody is cool."

On this day he was doing some unusual things, like pretending to walk through green Jell-o.

Activities Beyond the Classroomis paying for the $25,000 pilot program. Executive Director Brian Lesher would like to have this program at every CPS school, 7th through 12th.

"We hope we stimulate some kids to see something differently that they've never seen before. You never know you may go on and find that their passion has something to do with the arts or they may just end up buying symphony tickets."

Lesher says Activities Beyond the Classroom currently runs all extra-curricular sports programs for CPS.

Ann Thompson has decades of journalism experience in the Greater Cincinnati market and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting.