CATC announces 94% graduation rate

Published: September 14, 2015

Students return this week to their studios at the Cincinnati Arts & Technology Center 

Cincinnati, September 14, 2015 — Students of the Cincinnati Arts& Technology Center, (CATC) return to their art studios at Longworth Hall this week. The program serves Cincinnati Public Schools juniors, seniors, and overage underclassmen, most of whom are at risk of not graduating.

CATC changes that. During the 2014-2015 school year, 93.7% of participating CATC students who were eligible to graduate, did. That’s in keeping with the average graduation rate for CATC students since the program began more than a decade ago.

Classes at CATC begin four weeks after school reopens at the high schools, giving students time to settle into their regular academic routines. Each year more than a dozen CPS Schools participate, sending students to CATC studios during the school day or after school. The students, who do not have to be artists–in fact most are not–choose from five state-of-the-art studios where they can create in media ranging from traditional drawing and painting to ceramics, glass and digital art. They work side-by-side with their instructors, mostly successful young artists working in our communities and many known nationally, even internationally. Concurrent on-site mentoring from CATC staff and instructors, partner organizations and other supportive programs help to reignite excitement for learning and instill the confidence needed to succeed.

Every semester the students are given an academic theme of study on which to base their art. For the new semester, the theme is “Impact.” The students will be learning about how the world impacts art and how artists impact the world, studying everything from the social issues expressed in Picasso’s “Guernica” to how artists and the world impact each other in the context of current events. Participating students who lack sufficient fine arts or elective credits to graduate can earn these credits at CATC.
CATC serves approximately 400 students per year.

Each year 40 CATC seniors—-a subset of our student population–have the opportunity to participate in a CATC workforce development program called Bridging the Gap. CATC and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center founded the program in 2006, and Leadership Cincinnati later worked to bring it to scale. Since 2006, 65 CATC students have been hired into career positions with CATC employer partners.

“We are always excited to welcome our  students to a  new school year, some returning to CATC, some we’ll meet for the first time, all bringing their own stories to new opportunities to change the lives of young urban teens for the better.” said CATC CEO Clara Martin.

About the Cincinnati Arts & Technology Center
The Cincinnati Arts &Technology Center (CATC) is a non-profit agency that helps at-risk Cincinnati Public Schools students stay in school, graduate and launch careers. Most of our students are high school juniors, seniors and over-age underclassmen who lack sufficient credits to graduate. We use a combination of the transformational power of the arts, studio-based course work that meets Ohio standards for credit recovery, and workforce development programs to help approximately 400 students per year prepare to live economically self-sufficient lives. On average, 93% of our seniors graduate. CATC is patterned after the highly successful Manchester Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, and is a model for national replication of programs that use the arts to help children succeed. For more information, to donate or sponsor a child, please visit www.cincinnatiartsandtechnologycenter.org or call us at (513) 562-5500  For more information on Bridging the Gap: http://cincinnatiartsandtechnologystudios.org/student-programs/bridging-the-gap/
# # #
Media Contact: Gail Silver  (513) 475-0002 gms530@msn.com