Salt Lake School For The Performing Arts

I enrolled both my kids in this school when we moved back Utah because their program looked very different and intriguing to us. It didn't hurt that the school had received some awards for best charter school in the city. We quickly learned though that SPA (as they call themselves) only has one school counselor and students only have 2 out of 6 classes at the school a day. They get shuttled over to Highland high school where they do most of their schooling. And if they for whatever reason miss the shuttle then they have to run down to Highland or up to SPA so they aren't late for their next class. As far as the school counselor there at SPA, I don't know if she is overwhelmed or it is just her way but she has a 'do the minimum' attitude toward her job and many of the students. You can tell she has her favorites. My daughter, who is a senior, and who has consistently been on the honor roll throughout high school, has ambitious goals for college and post high school and when she shared them with the counselor she told my daughter that she should just pick one thing to go for it rather than work to support her in her goals. The school secretary is nice to the parents but it is a different story when the parents leave. Her attitude with the students is that they are a hinderance and not to be trusted. The principal is the opposite. We only contacted him the one time to see if they had a program that gave students a special rate for public transportation passes as many of the schools here do. After several calls and emails my husband and I just popped in one day when we were picking up our kids. It seemed to us to be a simple yes or no question. We found him to be defensive and uncooperative to say the least. As if we were a hinderance. My son chose this school because he loved theater but their theater teacher there is another story. She regularly criticizes the kids for being late (many of them, including us, travel from different cities to get there and are at the mercy of traffic and road conditions). We found her to be unwilling to work with, and even listen, to her students. My son had an A in her class and just before the term ended she pulled it and turned it into an F based on some absences that were all excused by us based on an illness that he has. There was no discussion with us or our son from her or the school counselor before she changed his grade, he just noticed on his report card that it had been changed. I honestly could go on. It really is the worst school we have ever dealt with.