Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School (PVPA) is a regional public charter school serving 400 students in grades 7-12, from over 50 towns throughout western Massachusetts.  Our mission is to offer students intensive exposure to the performing arts within the context of an excellent college preparatory curriculum.  The goal of PVPA is to provide students with a supportive and challenging environment that is responsive to multiple learning styles, emphasizes learning through the arts, and integrates creative and critical thinking throughout the curriculum. PVPA offers an answer to the challenge of educational transformation: an extraordinary, integrated curriculum that challenges students to blend creative and critical thinking in academic and performing arts courses is complemented by a respectful, empowering community that surrounds students with the support and encouragement of teachers, parents, and administrators. PVPA is a school where learning is so vivid, relevant, and magnetic that young people want to be there. Through our curriculum and instruction, students develop a sense of confidence, a direction for individual creativity, and the skills and experiences necessary to succeed in college and beyond. The school has earned a reputation for its dedicated faculty and administrators, academic and artistic excellence, and motivated student body.  At PVPA, committed educators from a wide range of experiences and expertise collaborate to create diverse programming, attentive teaching, and innovative forms of assessment.  Each academic and performing arts faculty member, whether full-time or adjunct, holds impressive potential for successfully implementing the mission of the school. In keeping with PVPA's philosophy that creativity and critical thinking are intricately intertwined, many faculty are trained in both an academic discipline and an art form; thus, the arts inform classroom teaching in many traditional academic classes throughout the school. Within the framework of its scope and sequence, PVPA offers students choice in performing arts programs, including multiple options within the disciplines of dance, theatre, vocal and instrumental music, technical theatre, and visual arts.