Evolution
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We Change With You
Issue 1
Santa Ana, California
OCSA @ the beach
Jack Murphy
Co-Editor in Chief
With mixed reactions,
California School of
the Arts (CSA), the new
organization formed by
OCSA leadership, will
open its first arts charter school in Oceanside entitled California
School of the Arts-San
Diego County (CSASDC or CSArts-San
Diego County), scheduled to open Aug.
2016.
The OCSA-modeled
school will be located
at what is now Jefferson Middle School
and house 7th-12th
grade students in 11
arts conservatories.
The campus will also
house an arts elementary school controlled
by the Oceanside
Unified School District
(OUSD). CSArts will start
by enrolling grades
7th-10th for the 20162017 school year and
then add grades 11th12th over the next two
school years.
Since OCSA has
reached its capacity
and the Santa Ana
campus has “completed [its] footprint”
according OCSA and
CSA-SDC executive
director Dr. Ralph
Opacic, the board felt
this was the right time
to expand to other
locations. Opacic sees
the potential to serve
10,000 kids a year. Other possible CSArts locations include LA and
The Valley.
“The motivation for
[multi-campus expansion] is to provide more
students the OCSA
experience. I hear from
students all the time
that the OCSA experience is transformational. It’s life-changing,”
said Opacic.
While the OCSA
leadership has a positive attitude towards
the new addition, some
families from OUSD are
worried about the fate
of their students. During
the September 22nd
OUSD board meeting
where the school’s
charter was approved,
students and parents
held signs that read,
“We demand high
quality education for all
Oceanside kids” and
“Don’t shut down my
school.”
Because of the audition requirements,
families fear that some
students will be ignored
and CSA-SDC will drive
out other arts programs
in the district according to The San Diego
Union-Tribune.
“Well nobody likes
change,” said Opacic. “Change is hard for
everybody and most
of the people that
spoke that night didn’t
oppose the idea of an
OCSA-like school coming to San Diego,” said
Opacic. He explained
that many parents and
teachers are worried
their kids will not get
opportunities in the arts
and are opposed to
the closing of Jefferson
Middle School.
Much of this opposition was very similar
to OCSA’s beginnings
in 1987 at Los Alamitos
High School, where a
newspaper article was
titled “OCSA Invasion,”
in fears of OCSA driving
out arts programs in the
district.
“A lot of it is just lack
of information and the
fear of change,” he
added.
Senior Madi Moet
(MT) commutes from
Temecula on a daily
basis and is upset the
school was not available when she was in
7th grade. However,
she is happy an arts
school is coming to
the San Diego area:
“It’s definitely needed
down there because
the arts districts are
booming, but there’s
no school for it,” she
said.
Moet has concerns
the campus in Santa
Ana still needs attention before expanding
to another location.
“This campus takes so
much work already. I
just think that there’s
things here that could
be fixed, rather than
them opening up a
brand new school. I
think that the funding
could be better used
here, but I’m not opposed to the idea.”
For those worried
about the fate of
OCSA because of its
sister school, Opacic
assured “There’s no risk
to OCSA because it’s a
stand alone entity. So
whether it fails or succeeds, it’s not going to
change anything that
happens here on Main
Street.”
“We are all under the
spell of a true visionary, who is Dr. Ralph
Opacic,” said Musical
Theatre Conservatory
director Jeff Paul.
Opacic has been
noted to have ambitious goals as an educational leader. Paul
added, “I’m the kind
of person that when
somebody says ‘This is
gonna happen’ I always think ‘Well, show
me and then we’ll
see if it happens.’ But
that’s not the way with
Dr. Opacic, it is ‘This is
gonna happen,’ we’re
all like ‘How do we
help?’”
Starting in October,
applications for CSASDC will be available,
with auditions beginning in March 2016. In
January and February,
preview sessions hosted by Dr. Opacic will
be available. For more
information, visit csarts.
net.
October 13, 2015
Dance, Music,
Science, Oh My!
Mikayla Knight
Co-Editor in Chief
Spectators gathered
in the summer heat to
see the unveiling of the
new Dance, Music, and
Science Center (DMS)
on Aug. 16. The Marybelle Musco Dance
Center, The Hal and
Jeanette Segerstrom
Family Music Center,
and The Argyros Science Center has 47
rooms for instruction
and rehearsal, as well
as an outdoor quad.
Dr. Opacic explained
there were issues with
forming the campus
out of repurposed
buildings because
OCSA’s needs are
so unique. It was important to Opacic to
meet the needs of the
students by designing
specific spaces, such
as larger dance and
science classrooms as
well as music rooms
with better acoustics.
“With these three
buildings,” Opacic said,
“we have solved all of
our problems.”
According to Leadership seniors Annelise
Kamegawa (CW) and
Tamar Rubin (ACT), the
best part of the DMS is
arguably the air conditioning.
The DMS isn’t the
only big new thing on
campus. The population has also faced a
significant growth; with
approximately 600 new
students this year, the
OCSA campus is now
home to over 2,200
students.
“I definitely think
there is going to be a
problem of letting too
many people in,” said
Kamegawa. “I think
with this new addition
and having so many
students OCSA might
lose a sense of intimacy
that is such a huge part
of the campus.”
The new bathrooms in
the DMS have become
a fan favorite. Dr. Wallace, Dean of Facilities
and Supervision, has
admitted to the beautiful bathrooms being
one of his favorite parts
of the new building.
Senior and HGT bf