Welcome to Nevada City School of the Arts

Nevada City School of The Arts

  A public charter school serving Transitional Kindergarten-8th grade students throughout Nevada County, California. The shared vision of our school is to provide a rigorous academic environment using art as a lens to shape curriculum.

Academics at NCSA are informed and inspired by the arts. Discipline-Based Art Education provides a rigorous academic curriculum in which students have the opportunity to create art, understand its cultural and historical context, respond to and make critical judgments about art, and understand their classroom learning through the lens of art.

The music program at NCSA, designed to enrich our core academics, is based on the philosophy and practice of Orff Schulwerk, a dynamic approach to music education developed by the composer Carl Orff and his colleague, Gunild Keetman. This approach begins with the premise that every child is innately musical and naturally loves to play, sing and dance.

Main Lesson Art is integrated with the academic curriculum for each grade level. These art lessons support, enhance, and bring greater depth to the students’ studies through tactile hands‑on experiences and in‑depth studies of art as it relates to the area of study.

“The Arts—Music, Dance, Theater, and the Visual Arts—are crucial to the complete education of a child. Their practice, understanding and appreciation are essential to human experience and learning itself. Participation in the arts fosters a balanced and enriched life and engenders a commitment to excellence. The Arts are not simply a means; they are an end in themselves. The Arts make us human and whole”. – from the NCSA Philosophy Statement