Last week, I got an email from Christine Bragg from the Cocheco Academy of the Arts in Dover telling me that the school is in danger of closing due to lack of funding.  Here's part of her email:

As a parent of a child who attends Cocheco Arts, I have witnessed my daughter blossom and grow with not only her art career,  but also with her singing and ability to self teach herself how to play guitar. This little school that could provides and environment for any child to fit in and feel comfortable to be able to express one self. While successfully teaching each child that it is OK to come out of one's shell.

This email really hit me directly in my music loving heart.  I am the daughter of a jazz piano player, I went to school for Vocal Performance, play the piano and the trumpet and then, I married musician.  Music has literally been the focus and love of my entire life and lately, I've heard of funding being cut on a national level for the arts.  To hear that it's happening right here, where I live and work, was such bad news.  The school doesn't just focus on music either.  They also have a robust program for painters, potters, writers, etc.  It is a creativity based school including all the other subject that kids need to go to college.

It's not all bad news for the school's current situation.  There are things that we can do to keep the school open.  Christine brought in a student, Kat, a junior at the school and she came on the air this morning with Aaron and me.  You can listen to the whole interview here:

I can attest that a charter school is the best thing that ever happened to my stepson.  He got SO much more attention than he would have in public school and IT'S FREE!!  Why would any parent hesitate?  It's a better education!

You can help two ways:

  • Consider sending your creative, artistic child to CATA
  • Make a donation to the school here

We will absolutely follow this story to let you know how the school is doing.

If you make a donation, thank you so much!

 

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