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A tall boy sitting at the end who, like many of the students, is a ham on stage and a cut-up in class but shy when asked his opinion, is pointedly called on among the first. “Jonathan, this way you can’t say other people have stolen your ideas,” Boggess says, chiding him playfully. “I told you I was wise to your moves.”

(Boggess, by the way, doesn’t permit her students to call her “Mrs. Boggess,” preferring “Julie” instead. “I have to hear [Mrs. Boggess] all school year,” she says.)

Though some of them have known one another only three days, the students are already familiar with their collective sensitivity to criticism. “You can do it!” one calls out as another hems and haws.

“Be strong!”

“Be mean!”

Boggess seizes the teachable moment. Constructive criticism, she says, has nothing to do with being mean, and everything to do with making a good performer great.

It’s a valuable lesson, but perhaps more valuable for the 163 students at SCATS is the environment they create for one another – creative, open, and free of the judgment and stigma they say characterizes their school experience.

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