Heart of the Arts: Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts Turns 100.
Kathy Tran
Just down the hall from them, the students in art instructor Krystal Read's class are preparing intricate designs for a printmaking project, a complex medium made from a multitude of materials that the"We get to work with specialized equipment and very specific classes," says Read, who's also a Booker T. graduate and the school's assistant director for the visual arts conservatory."We're just keeping up with the top tier standards this school has.
A school like Booker T. Washington is a rarity, beginning with its strong support and focus on balancing artistic and academic education for the 250 students who earn a spot each year.
The school achieved many firsts in regional education: It was the first Dallas school to broadcast a football game on radio, the first school in the Southwest to teach an accredited course in African American life and history and the first to found a National Honor Society chapter, according to historical reports.
"We got to go to the opera," she says."We got to go to the symphony. We got to do a whole lot of stuff we weren't introduced to at K.B. Polk [Elementary]."