'Ignite ... that spark': 20 years in, Cathedral Arts CEO is arts education's biggest cheerleader

The father stood up in the audience with tears falling down his face. He had just watched his daughter's dance performance at a Cathedral Arts Project showcase in Jacksonville.

"I had happened to overhear him in a conversation with another parent before the show and he remarked that he didn’t even think his daughter would go out on the stage," the Rev. Kimberly Hyatt, CEO of the arts education nonprofit, said. "After the performance, he could hardly believe his withdrawn little girl had come out on stage and come out of her shell. I have to think that after that day, he had much higher expectations for what she could achieve."

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Hyatt, 57, has been on the front row to watch such transformations for 20 years, She was named Cathedral Arts' first executive director in 2002.

Almost a decade earlier, a small group from St. Johns Cathedral launched the arts education program with one dance class. When Hyatt arrived, it had a few hundred students and a $70,000 budget.

To date, about 31,000 Duval County students have received instruction in dance, media arts, music, theatre and visual arts — about 1,300 annually in afterschool, school day and summer programs and cultural experiences — and the operating budget has grown to about $3.3 million a year.

"To impact a child’s life for the positive is always the most important accomplishment," Hyatt said. "Children carry themselves differently when they realize they have the power to solve problems and create something good if they work hard enough."

Data from Cathedral Arts, which tracked its students' progress over a 10-year period, shows:

• 97% were promoted to the next grade level;

• 90% gained proficiency in various aspects of their artform;

• 84% increased participation and task completion in class;

• 84% strengthened communication skills with peers and adults.

Also, they received half as many behavioral violations in school as their peers and had a higher grade-level proficiency on standardized tests, according to the nonprofit.

"Kimberly has been an extraordinary leader over the past 20 years, guiding the expansion of CAP to provide arts education to generations of children who would not otherwise have had access," Kristine Cherek, board chairwoman, said. "Her visionary leadership has been transformational."

From divinity school 'interlude' and pulpits to arts education

Hyatt took a circuitous route to Cathedral Arts.

Born and raised in a poor, rural area of South Carolina, she grew up on a small farm that mainly grew tobacco.

"Tobacco barns and pecan trees dotted the 40 acres around our house, land from which my paternal grandmother cleared all the pine trees on her own with nothing more than a hand ax as her husband was blind," she said. "I’m guessing her genes have something to do with my work ethic."

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Early on, Hyatt had no particular career goals, but she and her sister became first-generation college graduates. Her first job was a brief stint as a newspaper reporter in her home state, her second job was in government relations for the supermarket industry in Washington, D.C.

"For a farm girl who had no idea what she could be when she grew up, I was living the dream and loving mingling with politicians and business leaders," Hyatt said.

Then came what Hyatt now calls an "interlude"  — divinity school at Princeton Theological Seminary. That step stemmed from worshipping and taking on volunteer leadership positions at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, where she also saw a woman in the pulpit for the first time.

"In time I began feeling God calling me to ministry," she said. "Having come from very modest circumstances, I struggled with giving up what was going to be a lucrative career in government relations but after a couple of years, I decided to pursue my divinity degree."

After her 1996 ordination, Hyatt was associate pastor at South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church through 2004 and then interim pastor at Peace Presbyterian Church. During the second stint, she learned of the new Cathedral Arts position.

"I thought this sounded like a nice program for children," she said. "I had no idea how it could literally change the trajectory of their lives."

In some children, 'it takes the arts to ignite that spark'

The Cathedral Arts course catalog at various schools ranges from beginner theater for second- and third-graders and beginner strings for third-graders to visual arts for third- through fifth-graders and digital animation for seventh and eighth-graders.

Other programs:

• CAP String Orchestra, an ensemble of current and former Cathedral Arts string students in fourth through 12th grades who "collaborate, perform and further their understanding of classical and contemporary music," according to the website.

• The Arts for Justice Involved Youth visual arts program at the John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility is for males ages 12 to 17. They learn painting techniques, "artistic skills and knowledge of art and art history," as well as communication and social skills, nonviolent self-expression and coping methods. Cathedral Arts provided expanded resources for an existing visual arts program led by Tony Rodrigues.

Most young people in the justice system are victims of trauma and an estimated 70% of them are mentally ill, Hyatt said. The arts can reach such troubled youth "when nothing else has," she said.

"Every child is born with the capacity to make positive contributions to society," she said. "Sometimes, it takes the arts to ignite that spark."

Area principals regularly witness the benefits.

Tina Bennett, principal of John E. Ford Pre K-8 School, said Cathedral Arts is a "tremendous asset to our students, providing them the opportunity to experience the arts in realistic and practical ways. It allows students to know themselves and each other at a higher level."

At Venetia Elementary School of the Medical Arts, the program helps students "express themselves through theatre," Principal Monique Chatman said. "It warms my heart to see students engaged in the performing arts … feeling a sense of belonging."

Davina Parker, principal of Spring Park Elementary, said Cathedral Arts offered an "innovative way to engage our students in learning and strengthening their reading skills through theater." That engagement made her students "more confident and outgoing with their tasks" and more likely to work collaboratively on assignments, she said.

Arts education should be 'central' in schools daily

The community has been supportive of Cathedral Arts: about 88% of its budget comes from private philanthropy, with government funding about 12%.

In 2005 Hyatt established the nonprofit's signature fundraising gala, Spring for the Arts, which now provides about $650,000 in annual funding. Also, Hyatt secured partnerships and endowments with community leaders and philanthropists Susan and Hugh Greene, J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver and the Foley Family Charitable Foundation.

Cathedral Arts has attracted national recognition. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts selected Jacksonville to be the 14th Any Given Child community, which ensures equitable access to learning in the arts. Hyatt also secured partnerships and grants from state and national arts entities, according to the nonprofit.

She is one of arts education's biggest cheerleaders.

"If you care about education, then you need to care about arts education. We need to start taking the arts seriously as an essential part of the curriculum," she said. "To persevere in problem-solving, students must be engaged, and there is nothing that engages their brains like the arts."

Arts education, Hyatt said, is "central to the school every day" in countries whose students routinely outperform those in the United States and where there is less of a socioeconomic achievement gap among children than in the U.S. Hyatt said.

"Every American should be alarmed about this," she said.

When she took on the Cathedral Arts job in 2002, Hyatt had no idea she would stay 20 years and become so passionate about arts education. Now she is focused on expanding the nonprofit's reach.

"This work has come to feel like my calling," she said. "There’s nothing I’d rather be doing with my life. … I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years bring."

bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109

CATHEDRAL ARTS PROJECTJACKSONVILLE

To donate, volunteer or get more information, contact Cathedral Arts at 207 N. Laura St., Suite 300, Jacksonville, FL 32202; (904) 281-5599 or go to capkids.org.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Cathedral Arts Project Jacksonville CEO marks 20 years