Perfor & Vis Arts High School

Some great teachers, some awful teachers. I found the principal to be the worst, most unsympathetic "advocate" for the students.

Irritated and annoyed that HSPVA did not plan an alternative to making their Juniors take the SAT in the middle of all the neighborhood construction. The SAT is a major college admission determining factor and the students had to take it with construction noises all around during the entire test time. Construction has been in progress around the school for months, so it was a known factor. One call from the school principal to HISD or from the HISD superintendent to the mayor could have eliminated the noise for the 5 hours of testing. Or the school could have provided an alternative examination site -- like, for instance, having the 200 students take the SAT at Bellaire High School where the school had numerous empty classrooms because Bellaire asked their 3,000+ freshmen, sophomores, and seniors to arrive to school late on the testing date to provide their juniors with quiet for testing. One instance of HSPVA's top administration's lack of consideration and respect for their students.

Just a few comments from an old alum. The school is not for everyone (kids or parents) but it is a decent school. Be prepared to suffer through the trials that your kid will experience such as extreme competition, immediate shock to self-esteem within the first year, constant schedule juggling, prima donna micro-manager instructors, constant practicing, summer school, senior recital prep, some level of outside-of-the-class isolation, obvious cliques, and some level of apathy from the school when it comes to college. The school expects that if your son or daughter is going there, the child should have a higher level of maturity when it comes to determining the college to attend, major, etc. HSPVA is mainly focused on the here and now as a college prepatory program for the arts. So, there is sort of a take no prisoners attitude there. If your kid doesn't cut it in the first year academically/ arts, they are out. Thats it. The best thing a kid will get coming out of there is mental toughness and learning to stay focused on achieving set goals in the face of schedule constraints and adversity. Overall, it is a good school but it is not a cakewalk.

Couldn't have been a better choice for our son. Great sense of community, challenging academics, sense of equality, originality, creativity, freedom to express oneself in many mediums, great teachers and over 95 % go on to college.