Jack Carr, Founder, Girard Academic Music Program

>> Hello my name is Jack Carr, I am currently working as an administrator in the Charter School in the city of Philadelphia, but I spent about 47 years in the field of Education, in the Arts, especially in music, and I've been an administrator for about the last 17 of those years. So for about 30 years I was teaching music, most of these at the Girard Academic Program which I founded in 1974 and I was there until 2013. Well like so many other things in life, right place, right time. I didn't know anyone, I didn't have connections. I was 26 years old. The principal came there, she saw some of the things I had done that year in Music Education and she decided she wanted to start a music major program at the age of middle school grades, like 5 through 6. Which was very innovative in 1974. So, I happened to be there. She said to me, "It's yours to take, we take 55 kids, we give them some kind of aptitude test for music," which is what we did. And those students became the beginnings of the Girard Academic Music Program. So that group from that meager beginnings with 55 students in 1974 to the first graduating class of high school in '83, and it grew. Right now there are about 500 students in grades 5 through 12. From camp I have a number of kids that are currently on Broadway and that are in, you know, have major roles with orchestras and things of that nature. So, the ones that did go into music have been quite successful. My other school would be the first graduating class will be this year. But a number of them are already attending classes from string theory at Penn. And at Drexel. And Temple. And Cabrini. All those universities within our area. So they're already on the track to collegiate experiences at the high school level and will have credits completed before they've graduated in June 2017.