Now more than ever, students in grades 6 - 12 need safe, supervised out-of-school experiences, meaningful interactions with positive role models, and help to direct their creativity and encourage their social development and academic success. Unfortunately, there is a severe lack of out‐of‐school offerings for Middle and High School aged youth. The Woodruff Arts Center’s vision is to fill that gap by leveraging the programs that are currently being offered within the Divisions and partnering with other organizations to provide a broad range of opportunities to engage students during out‐of‐school hours. Our concept comprehensively provides academic enrichment , focused training in arts disciplines , training in technical production and an education in business management.

In addition to our current offering of weekend and evening educational programs, the Out‐of‐School Programming Initiative will offer an enterprise wide After School program and Summer Camp that allow middle and high school students to gain intimate knowledge of and training in their selected art form (Theatre, Music, Visual Art, Dance), technical production associated with that discipline, general arts management, and collaborative project development. We will also establish an Arts Leadership Program, where selected college aged youth will learn by teaching and test their leadership abilities by serving as junior counselors for the after‐school programs.   All students will be able to continue learning at their leisure by accessing online courses on art history, the contextualization of our performances and exhibits, and arts management.