Every day, students from around the county craft sculptures and perfect still-lifes at the MCPS Visual Arts Center (VAC) at Einstein High School. These young artists expand their portfolios and develop skills to hone in on their passions. Students enrolled spend up to four years taking part in a nationally recognized program containing around 140 students that gives student-artists an opportunity to showcase their skills to colleges and competitions as well as take AP courses in the arts. WJ has three students who take part in this program: juniors Helen Besch and Asher Coelho and freshman Emma Cruz.

One of the biggest benefits of the program is how open the curriculum is, allowing students to focus on and further their skills in the types of artwork that they are passionate about so they can excel and perfect their craft in and beyond high school.

“I want to go into animation and film, so my thing is much more centered around the parts that would go into animation and stuff like that. You get to choose what you want to do and expand on that, so because of that, if you know what you want to do after school, you can tailor the program to fit those needs,” Coelho said.

At Einstein, students take a double-period art class for their first two periods before returning to their home school to continue with their core classes during the remainder of the day. Currently, students at the VAC have the opportunity to be enrolled in their home school and travel from school to the VAC school between the second and third periods. However, unlike some of the other split-day programs such as the Edison program and Fire Academy, students are not provided transportation and must find a way to travel on their own.

“It was definitely a lot more difficult at the beginning because I had to rely on my parents to drive me or other seniors in the program, but now that I have my own license, I can drive myself which makes it a lot easier … They are pretty good about parking permits, so I emailed the people for parking before this year because I knew I was going to drive myself and they were accommodating, but it’s pretty difficult to find parking because you are getting here late, so all the seniors and juniors that don’t actually have their permits steal it and it’s kinda frustrating, but it’s opened up a little more recently,” Coelho said.

Like other specialty programs around the county, students like the ability to have a closer-knit group since the number of students at home schools continues to grow.

“I [like] the community of [the VAC]. I think the teachers are really supportive and it’s a really nice space to work in. I really like having it in the morning because I think it’s a really nice outlet,” Cruz said.

Beginning with students who are accepted into the program this year, students will not be able to travel between schools and must enroll at Einstein if they wish to attend the VAC.

“I really like having the separation between my art class and the rest of my day. It puts me into a mindset of transition and I enjoy that a lot. It’s some down time before I have to take my AP World test,” Besch said.

Applications for this year’s cycle have already closed and will open for the 2025-2026 school year in October.