Central Visual and Performing Arts

Our second HBCU College Tour! We are excited to allow three juniors and two seniors an opportunity to visit Hampton U, Virginia State, and North Carolina A &T from March 23-26. This is a FREE trip.

Congratulations to Ms. Yu Shin Lee and Ms. Sandra Smith for being selected as the Golden Apple recipients for December.

Special shout out to senior Ronald Comage, who scored a 31 on the ACT. A score of 31 on the ACT puts you at the 95th percentile — that means you scored higher than 95% of all test takers. Additionally, a 31 is within the range of scores that elite and extremely selective colleges accept on average.

Beginning Feb. 1, schools like CVPA, museums and communities across the nation will mark the start of Black History Month –- a celebration of Black history, culture and education. Our celebration will include a door decorating contest, spirit week and a performing arts night showcase.

HSSU President, Dr. Collins came to CVPA and awarded 9 seniors with scholarships to attend HS this fall. Congratulations to the following recipients:

Award Name

1. Presidential Eyleen Dubon ($64,000)

2. Board of Regents Ebony Burgess ($30,000)

3. Board of Regents Juan Montoya ($30,000)

4. Board of Regents Jacorey Sutton ($30,000)

5. Board of Regents Tori Vincent ($30,000)

6. Board of Regents Xuan Pham ($30,000)

7. Board of Regents Anh Pham ($30,000)

8. Board of Regents Kaivion Crawford ($30,000)

9. Board of Regents Rolex Nguyen ($30,000)

Progress reports will be sent out on Friday, February 7th.

1. This is a progress report, not a quarter grade or a semester grade. This is purely advisory and will not impact GPA or college eligibility.

2. The progress report is the schools way of giving you a ‘heads up’ about how well they are doing so far.

3. The grades are based on between 2 and 4 weeks of work.

4. A single missed assignment can have a huge impact. If a single 15 pt assignment is missed (and scored as zero), this could be as much as 30% missing from the progress report grade.

5. However- all is not lost! This really is a ‘heads up’. Teachers may allow the student to catch up late or missed work for either full or reduced points. In either case, please make sure your child takes this opportunity. Any points are good points! A key point to remember is that points are cumulative for the quarter term grade. Earning 5/10 pts for a late or missed essay might not sound much, but that is 5 points that the student is not missing later when the GPA does matter.

6. In all cases, if you have questions do please contact your child’s teacher.

Specific things that can be done to help improve or maintain a grade in classes:

a. Make sure all work is turned in.

b. If a class is missed, make sure that the student copies up any missed notes and obtains any points based work. In most classrooms, the work due board and the work assigned boards are updated daily and should always be checked.

c. Keep up with it the “do nows”.

d. Work turned in late (for less points) is much better than work not turned in at all (zero points). However, it is much better to turn it in on time (no points loss).

e. Students need to understand what is covered in class. Reread classroom notes for comprehension on a frequent basis. Cross check with the textbook. Once the central concepts are grasped, the details become much easier.

f. Academic tutoring is available on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, with transportation home afterwards. This is free and run by the school.

Congratulations to our 27 students who have maintained absolutely perfect attendance for the first semester of school.

Listed in numerical order are the top ten students in each class. Cummulative GPAs were calculated to the end of semester 1 of 2024-2025.

Congratulations to all of our Club 21 members. 21 is the national average score for the ACT test and so any CVPA student who scores a 21 or above becomes a member of our Club 21. To date, we have 3 seniors in the club. Congratulations Xana, Ronald and Tallulah.

The 'A' Honor Roll is designated for students who have earned a GPA of 4.0 or higher. We have 27 students with straight A's. Congratulations to those high achievers!

The 'B' Honor Roll is designated for students who have earned a GPA of 3.5 to 3.9. There were over 100 students who earned this achievement. Their names have been posted on data boards throughout the school.

Advanced Placement (AP) courses are college-level courses offered by high schools.These courses require a little more from students, but students can receive college credit for them. We have 44 students enrolled in at least 1 AP course this year.

Congratulations to 10th graders Alexandra Romero and Erick Lunga on winning 1st place in the 1st CVPA STEM fair. Pictured with them is their science teacher, Mr. Custis.

Congratulations to 10th graders Jevon Cormier and Devon Scott on winning 2nd place in the 1st CVPA STEM fair. Pictured with them is their science teacher, Mr. Custis.

Congratulations to 11th grader Olive Losse on winning 3rd place in the 1st CVPA STEM fair. Olive is joined by her teacher, Ms. Lee.

CVPA will host a D-9 day on February 7th. This is a day where we will have presentations and performances from the nine historically African American fraternities and sororities, also known as the Divine Nine.

Our college counselor continues to schedule visits from Colleges and Universities from all across the US. Please continue to check our website for the most Up-To-Date Schedule of these visits.

CVPA will be hosting our very own HBCU college fair on February 20th!

To date, the CVPA class of 2025 has already been awarded almost 4 million dollars in merit based scholarships!

Ms. Bernard, our college counselor, is busy scheduling events for all of our students. Please check back regularly for opportunities that interest you.

Reminder that Senior Dues for the class of 2025 are due. If you have not paid the dues for your graduating senior, please contact Mr. Anselman at perry.anselman@slps.org.

Congratulations to the following CVPA students who have been selected to participate in the E. Desmond Lee Honors Choir. This is a choir that pulls together students from all of the city schools for choir, band, orchestra and visual arts for a night of arts.

Quartet 1:

1. Madison Moore
2. Zoria Mensah-Johnson
3. Darrion McTramble
4. Brent Ritter

Quartet 2:

1. Ramando Gillespie Jr.
2. Skylur Payne
3. Kyndall Williams
4. Devon Scott

Alternates:

1. Jevon Cormier
2. Aliya Nelson
3. Jo Swain
4. Xana Bell

We recently held class meetings to review theatre etiquette. It is an essential piece of the CVPA educational experience. Please take some time to review this with your student if you plan to attend any of the CVPA performances this year. We appreciate your help in modeling this every time you are on our campus.

On January 24th, Country music star Drew Baldridge visited CVPA to share his message, his music and his experience with both students and staff. It was an incredible afternoon of music and collaboration before he performed to a sold out crowd at the Enterprise Center later that evening.

On February 3, Jazz St. Louis will share two Lincoln Center Jazz artists with us: Trumpet player Pharez Whitted and Trombone Player Jennifer Krupa. Students in our instrumental music classes will have an opportunity to learn from these talented musicians.

Fourteen local teen acts’ dreams come true performing on the iconic stage at the Fabulous Fox St. Louis, MO — January 23, 2025 — The Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation awarded Central Visual and Performing Arts High School students Alexis Clark, Bryson Jones, Daisha Leachman, JaWae Bronner, Keith Brown, and Trenton Hampton of the dance troupe, ADIOS, with the First Place Scholarship Award at the 15th Annual St. Louis Teen Talent Competition (Teen Talent) on Saturday, January 18th at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. ADIOS won the hearts of both the judges and audience with their contemporary dance to Adios by Benjamin Clementine and choreographed by Endia Mosley, winning both the competition and the Audience Choice Award.

Thank you to the visual art students who worked to complete a wall mural that had been in process for decades. The mural is located just outside the dance studios and represents a variety of dance genres.

CVPA alum Chaz Williams-Ali (Class of 2007) is showing up and showing out at Operas and other major musical performances all across America. His most recent performances were The Chicago Opera Theatre and The New York Festival of Song. As a tenor Freelance Performer, vocal coach, and music director, he continues to make CVPA proud!

Thanks to scholarships provided through the Hesse Foundation, two CVPA students are able to receive FREE music lessons after school from skilled musicians.

Panorama Culture and Climate Surveys will be open from February 3rd through 14th! Our goal is 85% participation across the district. Family members can go to surveys.panoramaed.com/stlouis/familywinter2025/surveys and select CVPA.

Family members with emails on file with the district will be sent the link on 2/3.