About AVPA
Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual & Performing Arts (AVPA) was founded in 1996 through a grant from the state of California with major support from Sony Pictures Entertainment. The program offers after school classes, workshops, and programs in Schools of Theatre (Performance & Production), Visual Art, Film, Dance, and Music. Culver City HS also offers regular day classes in the same programs, most of which offer UC/CSU A-G credit. CTE (Career Technical Education) pathways are also offered in Theatre, Film, Dance, and Music Technology.
Led by certificated teachers, additional adjunct faculty who are professional artists, are brought in to teach workshops, classes, lead productions and exhibitions, or to work on projects with students. Along with Culver City Unified School District, major sponsors of AVPA include the AVPA Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization founded and run by parent volunteers. Sponsors & Partners include: Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Actors’ Gang, Center Theatre Group, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CCUSD Front & Center Theatre Collaborative, the Fineshriber Family Foundation, the Culver City Education Foundation, Santa Monica College, and West Los Angeles College.
AVPA Highlights
The AVPA student has an opportunity to:
Enroll in classes (7th period at CCHS), as well as workshops, projects, productions, exhibitions, performances, and programs.
Complete CTE pathways in Theatre (Performance and Production/Technical), Film, Dance, and Music Technology
Receive college credit for some courses (UC/CSU approved) from WLAC, SMC, and OTIS
Learn from professional teaching staff
Practice their craft using state-of-the-art technology and facilities
Access internships and scholarships
Participate in many productions and projects each year
Be part of a dedicated and motivated student population
Receive teacher/parent communication and guidance, as well as business, community, and higher education support
Make connections with the professional world and institutions of higher education
An innovative and challenging arts education program that empowers students and inspires a compassionate, creative community.
OUR MISSION
AVPA: IN SOLIDARITY
The Academy of Visual and Performing Arts at Culver City High School affirms its commitment to recognizing, addressing and eradicating all forms of racism and ethnic oppression. We focus on engaging and collaborating in teaching that challenges oppressive and unjust forces. We work to reduce racial injustices both within AVPA and the broader community. The AVPA leadership and faculty are united in the pursuit to end racial and ethnic bias and to empower our students towards this collective goal.
We acknowledge that regardless of one’s own race or ethnicity, individuals are at various points along an anti-racist journey. As an anti-racist and ethnically unbiased community, we will purposefully strive to identify, discuss and challenge issues of race, color, ethnicity, gender and the impact(s) they have on students, faculty, and staff members.
We support the CCUSD non-discrimination policy which states: The Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) is committed to providing a safe school environment that allows all students equal access and opportunities in the district’s academic, extracurricular, and other educational support programs, services, and activities. CCUSD prohibits, at any district school or school activity, unlawful discrimination, including discriminatory harassment, intimidation, and bullying targeted at any student by anyone, based on the student’s actual or perceived race, color, ancestry, nationality, national origin, immigration status, ethnic group identification, ethnicity, age, religion, political affiliation, marital status, pregnancy, parental status, physical or mental disability, medical information, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or genetic information, or association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics or beliefs.
CCUSD EQUITY VISION STATEMENT: In CCUSD we believe equity is our moral obligation. Through the use of an ethical and continuous process, we ensure that all students are given the academic, social, and emotional supports they need. We are working to cultivate a liberated learning environment that is free of bias and encourages students to achieve their own personal and professional aspirations. CCUSD Equity Plan
WE STAND COMMITTED:
To affirm explicitly and in united solidarity our identity as an anti-racist arts program.
To reaffirming and adhering to our anti-racism commitment in the life and culture of the AVPA, as expressed by our policies, programs and practices. Both institutionally and individually, we will continuously explore and examine instances of implicit bias and systemic advantage/oppression. We will work to dismantle bias and oppression/advantage in all facets of the AVPA.
To the development and implementation of strategies and best-practices that dismantle racism and ethnic oppression within all aspects of our Visual and Performing Arts program.
LA COUNTRY LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The County of Los Angeles recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tonga, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants past, present, and emerging as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma.
This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation and to elevating the stories, culture, and community of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles County. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these ancestral lands. We are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with Native peoples and local tribal governments, including (in no particular order) the :
Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians
Gabrielino Tonga Indians of California Tribal Council
Gabrieleno/Tonga San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians
Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation
San Manuel Band of Mission Indians
San Fernando Band of Mission Indians
To learn more about the First Peoples of Los Angeles County, please visit the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission website at lanaic.lacounty.gov.