It’s game night, and inside the band room at Hall High School in Little Rock, student are buzzing with excitement. Basketball season is starting, and Hall’s brass band is fine-tuning the music they’ll perform to pep up the audience and the players tonight. Band instructor Rojay Moore leads the musicians, stopping them every now and then to pinpoint where they could make changes. “Being in the band helps students develop the discipline needed for success in and out of other cl

Inside the portable classroom that serves as a dance studio at Mabelvale Magnet Middle School in southwest Little Rock, Kimeka Williams’ advanced dance students buzz with excitement. Today they’re unpacking a new set of jazz shoes that Ms. Williams acquired through Thea’s Art Closet, a program of the Thea Foundation that provides arts materials to classrooms across the state. Energetic, smiling teenagers stretch and move independently in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors,