West Roxbury Resident Joins Boston Arts Academy Foundation Board

Boston Arts Academy Foundation announced today that West Roxbury resident Evelyn Arana-Ortiz, Executive Director of Customer Onboarding at athenahealth Inc., joined its 20-member board of directors and serves as Treasurer. Arana-Ortiz is a longstanding supporter of Boston Arts Academy (BAA), the city’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts, and a proud parent of a BAA graduate. She will play an integral role in the Building Our Future campaign, a five-year effort to raise $30 million to augment the school’s budget and build long term sustainability.

“Evelyn brings a distinct and vital point of view to help guide our organization toward its goal of providing high-quality arts programming and other critical services for our students,” said BAA Foundation President Denella Clark. “She has seen firsthand the impact BAA can have on our students and our community, and she is committed to ensuring her child’s opportunity to attend this one-of-a-kind school is extended to hundreds of others in the years to come.”

Arana-Ortiz is a Senior Healthcare Executive with more than 20 years of domestic and international experience who has demonstrated the ability to improve business operations by increasing customer satisfaction and exceeding financial targets. She has earned numerous awards for outstanding performance and is also committed to serving the community through her work with various nonprofit organizations. She currently serves as vice chair of the Boston Public Library’s Board of Trustees, and also chairs the BPL Trustees Finance and Audit Committee and the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund Advisory Committee.

“As a parent of a BAA alum, I appreciate how the school shapes young students, artists and citizens,” said Arana-Ortiz. “I’m honored to serve on the board to help raise essential funds for BAA’s unique arts curriculum, and I look forward to being part of an era of remarkable growth for a school unlike any other.”

About Boston Arts Academy Foundation

Established in 1999, the BAA Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization that raises essential funds from private philanthropic sources to augment the BAA school budget. The BAA Foundation helps bridge the gap between the school’s allocation from the Boston Public Schools, and the true cost of a high-quality education that is both arts-intensive and college preparatory.

Construction of the new BAA school building will not change BPS’s funding formula, which supports BAA’s academic offerings. Through the five-year, comprehensive Building Our Future campaign, the BAA Foundation is raising $30 million to augment BAA’s school budget and ensure long-term sustainability. The campaign includes raising $10 million to bring the BAA Foundation endowment to $13.5 million, and to secure $15.5 million in operating reserves. The endowment and reserves will support what makes BAA unique, including expanded programming, the Health and Wellness Program, STEAM (STEM+Art), and funding for the arts. The endowment also will support college scholarships for graduating seniors. The campaign will support BAA Foundation’s Annual Fund, which raises $5,000 per student each year. Building Our Future will ensure that as BAA’s student body grows, students can become successful artists, scholars and citizens.

About Boston Arts Academy

Founded in 1998 as the city’s only public high school for the visual and performing arts, Boston Arts Academy has distinguished itself among urban public high schools as a leader in innovative and effective student-centered education. Consistently recognized locally and nationally for its achievements, BAA exemplifies the power of an arts-rich education and many BAA graduates have found success in college through the arts. In fact, for the past five years, at least 97 percent of BAA graduates have been accepted to college, with most being first-generation college attendees. BAA’s dynamic program prepares graduates to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, collaborators and creators. Students come from all 23 Boston neighborhoods to receive the formal arts training and academic instruction that will make them Boston’s next generation of artists and cultural leaders.

In October 2018, the BAA community broke ground on a new $125 million facility at its Fenway location, which will expand from 121,000 square feet to 153,500 square feet upon its completion in September 2021. Among many highlights, it will include new and much-needed enhanced theatres, career center, academic classrooms, dance studios, music practice rooms and fashion technology studios and workspace. When BAA opens its new school building, the number of students enrolled will increase to 500, and eventually grow over the years.