Equality and a New Vision for Art Education: The Ralph Opacic Perspective
I had dreams just like any other kid. Picture this: a wide-eyed Virginia boy, with his heart set on becoming the next Billy Joel. At a young age, I packed my bags and headed to California to pursue my music career in hopes to become the next big thing. But, during my years in school, I realized another dream that didn’t involve sold out venues and late nights — it was education. I discovered that sharing my love of the arts with young people was my true calling.
Fast forward several years and I wanted to spread the gift of performing and visual arts to a wider audience, so I opened an after-school arts program. What started as a small program in 1987 turned into a school with more than a dozen conservatories, serving kids in 100 cities in Southern California. It was called The Orange County School of the Arts. Now, the program sees 2,300 students a year (grades 7–12) and serves students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
What was my mission? To provide unparalleled arts education for students who had the passion, commitment and drive to pursue their dreams, no matter their upbringing, ethnicity or financial status.
Orange County School of The Arts is a donation-dependent public charter school where no student is offered or denied admission based on financial capacity. All that’s required is a strong will, passion, and talent in the fine arts. The school develops young people to continue on to professional music, dance and theater and applied arts careers, and to finish their education at top-tier schools like Harvard and Stanford. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges — WASC.
I knew when I began my career in education that starting a prestigious school didn’t have to require an affluent family. Instead, talent, determination, passion and discipline is all that’s required and fostered through our programs, and I believe it’s the arts that help us identify our different cultures and bring them together. It allows us to identify, respect and celebrate the arts for all ethnicities, and it’s a common ground that we all understand in terms of music, art and dance.
Culture is a way we all demonstrate our values.
A Diverse Environment and Writing a New Story
Oftentimes, conservatories or alternative schools tend to attract more affluent families while lacking diversity. Since day one, we committed to serving multiple communities in Southern California — and in Santa Ana, specifically, where the population is 90 percent Hispanic. And with events in 2020 around racial injustice and the resulting atrocities, we re-committed to prioritizing inclusion and diversity at the school.
At Orange County School of The Arts, we have always prided ourselves on celebrating equity and creating a safe and inclusive campus culture for all students. In the summer of 2020, the national conversation around race and racism amplified the need to do more. With that in mind, the Coalition for Antiracism and Inclusion was created as an outgrowth of the Strategic Planning Process and through the schoolwide SLOs.
Orange County School of The Arts is one of the only art schools in the country that has a stand-alone Ballet Folklorico program that celebrates our Hispanic students. Bringing cultures in and together has provided an opportunity for everybody to acknowledge and respect different forms.
The arts provide a common ground where we can break down barriers. Ethnicity and race don’t matter — everyone can embrace and celebrate visual arts, dance, music, and so forth.
Expanding Beyond The Community
With a main campus in Santa Ana that opened its doors in 2000 as a stand-alone charter school, I realized that in order to be truly inclusive, I needed to expand the reach to other communities in the surrounding areas and beyond. I lead a team that opened the California School of the Arts — San Gabriel Valley (CSARts-SGV), the first regional campus that opened in 2017 to serve nearly 1,200 additional students. This led me to expand my desire to reach more people across the whole country through national leadership positions with Arts Schools Network as well as opening up my own nonprofit consulting services.
We also provided more access to our community. We developed a program called Camp OCSA Scholarship Program where we brought students from the community to Orange County School of The Arts. For some of them, it’s the first time they’ve been exposed to the arts in any way.
“Over the past three decades, Dr. Ralph S. Opacic has expanded Orange County School of The Arts’ instructional space tenfold, developed 16 arts conservatory programs, created a student sponsorship program that enables all students to receive the same experience regardless of their family’s financial capacity, and so much more. The Board of Trustees, as well as Orange County School of The Arts faculty, staff, and administrators are grateful for Ralph Opacic’s legacy and promise to uphold the school’s commitment to excellence for many years to come.”
— Gary Humphreys, Chair of the Orange County School of The Arts Board of Trustees.
Celebrating Differences and Fostering Equal Opportunities
Beyond being a donation-based organization that does not turn away any student or family due to financial constraints, Orange County School of The Arts also prioritizes equal opportunities, from the admissions process to casting. We provide gifts of music and arts education, enrichment opportunities and educational experiences focused on learning about diverse cultures in order to better understand and communicate with all of our student population and staff.
In admissions, we prioritized the inclusion of students with disabilities; we ensure collaboration between students, administration and school safety and we are intentional about challenging perspectives that adhere to content standards and parameters of state requirements. We continually represent students and staff of various religions, races and ethnicities, sexual orientation as well as intersectional ties among those individuals. We remove barriers in the admissions process and implement increased efforts to recruit underrepresented neighborhoods and communities.
I think it’s making sure that every student has the opportunity to develop as a learner to their full potential; that there are no barriers for any student to develop, excel, and exceed.
Fostering Diversity, Inclusion and Equity For Your Own Organization
Incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion is not only a no-brainer for your school or organization in this day and age, it really is a best practice. Not only does it help your employees or students feel more comfortable being themselves, but also helps recruit a far more diverse student body and staff, and boosts productivity and overall morale. Enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within your institution can be achieved through these practical steps:
- Become aware of unconscious bias (within yourself and others)
- Promote pay equity
- Look at the recruitment/admissions process. Remove barriers and educate those in position to dig deeper and expand their reach
- Acknowledge holidays of ALL cultures
- Make it inviting, fun and easy for students or staff to get involved
- Keep an open door policy. While all of this is relatively new, encourage your students or employees to provide feedback about how they’re feeling so you can continue to refine and improve your culture
- Assess company policies and tweak regularly
- Track progress
We all have passions and want our school, organization or big idea to go far. But if we don’t look at how our operation is functioning, and how it is or is not inclusive of everyone involved, we lose. My hope is that OCSArts and CSArts serves as an example that we can all learn how to reach out (to those within our organization and those who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to be involved), communicate, and refine policies and procedures — because everyone deserves to succeed and to live their passions, no matter where they come from.
Ralph S. Opacic is the founder of Orange County School of the Arts, had a vision to provide unparalleled arts education for students from all backgrounds. With the commitment to celebrate diversity, inclusion, and differences, Dr. Ralph Opacic dedicated his life to creating a school focused on providing unparalleled arts education. An inspiration for all to work towards a better tomorrow, every student has the opportunity to develop as a learner to their full potential, with no barriers holding them back. Orange County School of The Arts was founded in 1987, and has since expanded its impact, serving 2,300 students a year across 100 cities in Southern California. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges — WASC and has been recognized as a model for arts education.
Ralph Opacic LinkedIn
Ralph Opacic Crunchbase
Ralph Opacic Instagram
Ralph Opacic Facebook
Ralph Opacic Youtube
Ralph Opacic Twitter
Ralph Opacic SoundCloud
Ralph Opacic IMDB
Ralph Opacic Pinterest
