WMCAT graduates first students, state-of-the-art facility promotes excellence

One class of at-risk Grand Rapids Public School students celebrated a special victory this week when they graduated from high school with much more than a basic education. Special training in a variety of art mediums kept them in school working toward diplomas and contributes to one school's 85 percent graduation rate.

According to excerpts from the story:

GRAND RAPIDS -- Shakur Sanders puts his creativity to the test every week in his digital arts class at the West Michigan Center of Arts & Technology, an after-school and summer school program aimed at students from four public high schools in Grand Rapids. Sanders loves basketball, and he also enjoys a scary movie. So when he was given an assignment to design a digital piece of art for a class project, he placed himself on a mountain with a basketball hoop -- with several imposing monsters between him and the bucket.

"It's going to be scary going to the basket," said Sanders, a freshman shooting guard on the Ottawa Hills High School basketball team, "but since I want to score so bad, I have to go. "I always like to try something new," said Sanders, who has attended WMCAT since November. "I found out it was fun, so I stayed." WMCAT is in its fourth year of targeting students who are statistically at risk of quitting school.

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