The Midlands Arts Conservatory (MAC) is a free public charter school with a special focus on the fine arts. MAC opened in August, 2018 in Columbia, SC enrolling 6th and 7th grade students interested in music, dance, theater, or the visual arts. In addition to a strong core of academics, students spend half the day exploring their passion for the arts. MAC will continue to add a grade yearly until we have a graduating senior class in the spring of 2024.
Our school is helping all students develop the World Class Skills by thinking critically, collaborating, communicating, and learning. Current research shows how important the arts are in the development of the brain – we know that there is a direct correlation between the arts and SAT scores, school attendance, and career successes. Research shows that students who have had intensive arts experiences in high school are three times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than students who lacked those experiences. We know that businesses love having students with arts backgrounds because they are disciplined and focused. MAC is building on these facts by creating a curriculum that offers a standards based academic program with a flexible schedule that integrates the arts into the academic program and academics into the arts program. Our students have begun to learn who they are and how they learn best. Whether it is in the Arts or in an academic classroom that uses the arts, many of our students know how to learn best through arts disciplines.
The Midlands Arts Conservatory differs from other schools by offering students in middle school (and eventually high school) the opportunity to receive a free public school education coupled with daily instruction in the fine arts from skilled and highly trained practicing artists. Students at MAC spend three hours per day on their arts studies.Many of the students enrolled in the school would not otherwise have the opportunity or ability to afford the lessons and training that the students receive at this school.
During the 2018-2019 school year, MAC enrolled 81 students in 6th and 7th grades. Students came from five counties in the Midlands of South Carolina: Richland, Fairfield, Lexington, Orangeburg and Kershaw.
MAC opened its doors last year. Contrary to statistics that show that the majority of new charter schools decline in enrollment during the school year, MAC increased its enrollment from 62 to 81 during the course of the year and is set to nearly double its student population to 160 for the 2019-2020 school year. MAC was featured on SC-ETV as “Columbia School Working to Improve Learning Through Art.” Students participated in public performance throughout the school year. For many of the students this was the first time stepping on a stage. The students also entered several art contests around the state with good responses to their entries. These students used their creativity and innovation to solve problems and push themselves beyond where they were before they began last year.
MAC is collaborating with community partners in both academic and artistic areas to ensure that the students are getting the best of what Columbia has to offer. At the same time it is integrating MAC into the artistic and academic fabric of the city. MAC has partnerships with various arts and educational organizations, including USC (the University of South Carolina), Columbia College, Columbia Children’s Theater, the Columbia Museum of Art, Boys & Girls Club, the Nickelodeon Theatre, Ebenezer Church, and the SC Philharmonic. Numerous artists have visited and performed or taught at MAC, including the Grammy-winning Parker Quartet, Sadie Stanley, Disney’s Kim Possible, artist Flavia Lovatelli, The Regulus Saxophone Quartet, drum circle master Dick Moons, and many more. MAC hopes to build an education model that can be replicated in other communities across the nation.
While MAC’s special focus is on the arts, we are vitally interested in the academic side of our offerings. MAC was able to teach all four academic content areas of Math, Reading, Science, and Social Studies with progress made across all areas from the beginning of the year to the end of the school year. MAC students use the flexibility of their schedules to excel in what they love while still accomplishing much in the area of standards in all four content areas. MAC academic teachers pull in the arts into their classrooms and give the students freedom to express themselves in various opportunities in formal and informal assessments.
What MAC is doing is vitally important to our city and our society. We are passing on our culture — a universal language which crosses boundaries and facilitates understanding. As the Charleston sculptor Willard Hirsch said when he addressed the cadets of the Citadel in 1948: "Art is a language, and a powerful one. All of us should know at least a few words in it".
Brad Tillman, Head of School
Rosie Craig, Board Chair