The heavy downbeat of rock music throbbed right through the thick front door of the old Pawtucket Armory where the Jacqueline Walsh School of Performing Arts, or JW, as the kids call it, now resides. I entered as the band was taking a brief break from practicing in their makeshift rehearsal space in the foyer. The kids were a portrait of students deep in the work of solving some tough, presumably musical problem. They offered perfunctory greetings and faint smiles while pointing me to the second-floor main office.

The three floors of offices that occupy the front of the massive Armory have been converted into a dance studio, art studio, music room, a “pretty good” science lab and sundry classrooms. From the second-floor balcony I could see kids playing basketball in the cavernous staging area which occupies most of the historic building.

In a hallway, another makeshift space, two girls rehearsed a scene from Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, getting instruction from Karen Carpenter, a local actress. Carpenter often performs at the Gamm Theater, a small, professional theater located right next door. She was a charming Viola in their production of Twelfth Night a few years back. An actress by night, Carpenter is a certified English teacher at the school by day. Her students know her in both roles, so they can see what it takes to juggle the demanding life of a working, but not rich-and-famous artist.

On the third floor I find the school’s principal, John Haidemenos, playing an old upright piano in a vigorous, aerobic style, accompanying a group of student singers belting their hearts out. The movie Fame came to mind, in which a catchy rhythm inspires a lunchroom of kids to “improvise” a fabulous song-and-dance number.

Finally, across the way from them, I met up with Steve Kidd, a theater director, who had invited me to visit the school. He was working with a group of girls on a piece which they had written jointly. “Articulate as though you’re performing to a 350-seat house. I want to hear every word, every syllable, clearly articulated.” The girls nod and take a deep breath. They start again.

Kidd is the Gamm’s director of education programming and the liaison between JW and the Gamm. JW uses working artists to provide training to the students — both as instructors and guest artists — so the school forged partnerships with organizations like the Gamm, Festival Ballet and the Rhode Island School of Design. To combine real training with the required high school academic program, the school day is long, divided into eight blocks, two of which are instruction in the kids’ major. Academic instructors come first thing in the morning, at 8, and the arts folks come in later. The day ends officially at 2:30, but the kids often keep going. Theater students, for example, might work at the Gamm on sets, costumes or lighting for the current show.

Theater student Kate says, “It’s so neat how much I’ve been able to connect with the Gamm.”

And Rachel, another theater major, says, “Two periods of a major are really great. Especially since some high schools have no arts at all.” Big problem.

Like Fame’s idealized school, JW was modeled after the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. Prospective students audition to be admitted. At JW, the audition counts 70 points toward acceptance, leaving academics to play a distinct 30-point second fiddle. A history of chronic absences will get a kid dropped down the waiting list, no matter how talented she is. Only serious students need apply.

So these are highly motivated kids who want to be in this school. Haidemenos, the principal says, “I was an administrator in [other] Pawtucket [schools] for nine years before I got the opportunity of a lifetime to come here. Here we have no discipline problems. We don’t even have locks on the lockers. We’re a family.”

Whatever the kids’ feelings about science or math, they will put up with working on academic subjects they might dislike, since they’re also learning skills they crave.

Last year’s JW juniors scored third best in the statewide writing test, after well-to-do Barrington and East Greenwich. They scored above the admittedly-dismal state average in the math test, and 85 percent were proficient in English language arts, also competitive with the tony suburban schools.

Most of the students come from Pawtucket’s Slater Junior High, a rare pocket of urban excellence whose principal, Mary Caswell, almost became last year’s national principal of the year.

Interestingly, 10 families from outside the Pawtucket School District — several from nearby Massachusetts — pay $16,000 in tuition for the privilege of going to this inner-city school with its makeshift rehearsal spaces.

Haidemenos would dearly love for JW to become a rigorous conservatory, with the right to audition and accept public students from all over the state. The school is tiny, with only 100 students and far more applicants than it can accommodate. The state’s fiscal crisis prevents expanding the program just now.

That’s too bad. Theater student Justina speaks for many when she says, “I like that it’s a smaller school and I really wanted individualized education and especially,” she trills, “theater!” Or art, or dance, or music.

Or for that matter, construction, engineering, environmental studies. Every high school kid should attend a school where he’s learning at least one skill or body of knowledge he really wants for himself, every single day. Otherwise school can seem painfully pointless — and often really is.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.