West Palm Beach Mayor Keith A. James pays tribute to
Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation in honor of their 30^th Anniversary.

On Monday, December 18th, 2023, City of West Palm Beach Mayor Keith A. James presented Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation Chairperson Darlene Dzuba and CEO Dr. Chris Snyder with a tribute from the city in honor of the Foundation's 30th Anniversary.

The Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation has supported the art & academic offerings at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts for 30 years, providing over $1.5 million in support to the Dreyfoos School of the Arts each year. In today's era of insufficient public education funding, schools are provided with minimal funds for arts teachers and supplies. An art magnet high school like Dreyfoos requires appropriate funding for art teachers, classroom supplies and materials, technology, Guest Artists, Artists in Residence, and much more to support these endeavors. The Foundation works to support a strong, suitably funded public high school that provides an advanced arts curriculum alongside rigorous academic course work, especially one that involves talented students of all socioeconomic backgrounds, benefiting our community and fulfilling the dreams of the next generation.

In 1990, in response to overwhelming community interest in establishing a public arts magnet school, The Palm Beach County School of the Arts opened on the former North Shore High School campus with an enrollment of 250 students in grades 7-9. Each year, a new 7th-grade class was added until 1994, when the school housed students from grades 7 through 12 and graduated its first class.

As the school grew, so did the need for a larger, state-of-the-art facility. Through the efforts of the School District, the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, and the School of the Arts Foundation, the historic Central Schools site in downtown West Palm Beach underwent significant renovations to become the new home of the Palm Beach County School of the Arts in 1997.

In 1997, Alexander W. Dreyfoos made the largest private contribution ever made to a public school in Florida when he pledged $1 million to support the Palm Beach County School of the Arts and the school was subsequently renamed in his honor. His contribution began 30 years of excellence in the arts and academic programming, enhanced by the Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation.

Dreyfoos School of the Arts, now serving over 1,300 high school students in grades 9 through 12, has developed an arts and academic curriculum that has resulted in consistently being ranked among the top high schools in the nation by such prestigious publications as Newsweek, the Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report. Dreyfoos is ranked the #24 magnet high school in the nation, the #2 public high school in Palm Beach County, and #90 out of nearly 18,000 public schools in America.

The Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation provides support for the arts and academic curriculum at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, a public arts high school, named #90 out of nearly 18,000 public high schools in the nation, among the eleven best schools in Florida, and the #2 public school in Palm Beach County. Dreyfoos School of the Arts Foundation, Inc. | P.O. Box 552, West Palm Beach, FL 33402 | Phone 561-805-6298 | info@soafi.org

Photo by Gerry Marcelo
SOAFI Chairperson Darlene Dzuba, Mayor Keith A. James, SOAFI CEO Dr. Chris Snyder