Inspire Families, We Need You!
A call for community support on behalf of our students
July 28, 2020
Dear Inspire families:
Since 2010, Inspire School of Arts & Sciences has delivered the high school experience, transformed. Every day, we offer learning opportunities at the intersection of the arts and sciences. In addition to dancers, singers, and actors, students at Inspire are empowered to become artists, designers, researchers, engineers, and builders. This is something that happens all across campus, facilitated by master teachers. In Math class, students understand that solving a problem can be a choose-your-own adventure. In Ceramics, students understand that building a vase is a feat of design and engineering. We offer students educational experiences that integrate logic AND intuition, mind AND heart, technical know-how with imagination. The result is that we are sending people out into the world as fearless thinkers, do-ers, and problem-solvers. The integration of creativity and scientific thinking is the future of American education, and it’s happening right here at Inspire.
We are asking for your support, either with a one-time or monthly donation, by donating your time or resources, or passing on the opportunity to donate to friends and family.
What you might not know is that we are implementing a high school experience like no other in our region on a shared campus, in borrowed facilities, on a traditional-school budget.
Our student-led production of Oklahoma provided students with the opportunity to design costumes, hair, and make-up; design and run lighting for every scene; work with a set builder to create clouds seeming to “hang” freely in the air; budget and design the front of house (taking into consideration the feeling patrons gets when walking in the door while managing crowd flow, etc). With all these experiences comes a heavy price of over $35,000 per musical production.
Our Digital Media Arts program produces award-winning films by training students in the use of the highly competitive technology existing in our classrooms. In order to keep up with this rapidly evolving industry, we need to continually reevaluate and purchase current / cutting-edge technology. Inspire needs a media arts studio complete with rigging, lighting and backdrops as well as professional camera equipment for cinema production and digital photography. Other extra costs include funds for digital art competitions, including the SkillsUSA Program, registration costs, travel and accommodation costs. In other extracurricular programs including our Video Club, students need funding for their yearly cinema production and Inspire’s annual video showcase. Elsewhere in our community, Inspire participates in local art galleries, art competitions, art shows and our county fair. There are many costs associated with these including printing, matting, framing, registration costs, set-up costs and display costs.
Our innovative recycling program, Precious Plastics, has the capacity to turn Inspire’s recycling materials into salable products, teaching students about recycling, how to make a lasting impact on the environment, and empowering them to pass on their knowledge to other high school students. However, the project still needs a few thousand dollars to get up and running.
Schools can no longer function by hosting small fundraisers--especially cutting-edge, award-winning schools like Inspire School of Arts & Sciences. We need your help to bridge the gap between what the state funding provides and the additional costs of this extensive education.
Thinking about what the costs would be for dance classes, music lessons, acting classes, ballet lessons, voice lessons, transportation to and from lessons, etc.--would you be willing to donate monthly to the Inspire Foundation to ensure these experiences are available to all students? Thinking about the added costs of the pandemic and the transition to distance learning--would you be willing to donate monthly to ensure our students thrive through meaningful virtual connections to our school?
The Inspire Foundation is merging with the Inspire Support Team (similar to a PTO/PTA) and will be absorbing the additional management of the Angel Network (to assist students with financial hardship), scholarships, students activities, teacher support, and program enhancement in addition to the capital campaign.
Here is how you can help:
We are so grateful for your partnership, and we can’t wait to see what the future of Inspire holds!
With appreciation,
Becky Brown
Principal/Superintendent
Inspire School of Arts & Sciences
(530) 230-7758