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Wells APAC, the Academic and Performing Arts Complex, houses a magnet program for gifted and talented students under the auspices of the Jackson Public School District. This program, the only one of its kind in the state of Mississippi, was suggested by a 1980 Jackson Chamber of Commerce Educational Task Force. The original funding for this unique program came from a 1981 Emergency School Aid Act Grant. In addition to the council of Jackson Civic leaders, APAC was advised by a national council, chaired by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Eudora Welty. National advisors made personal visits to the APAC classrooms, sharing valuable insight and experience with students. Robert Joffrey, founder of the Joffrey Ballet, and Richard Englund, founder and director of American Ballet Theatre II, helped audition dance students, conduct their first class, and write the Vagonova Ballet Dance Curriculum for the APAC Dance Department.

APAC had its opening ceremony on January 22, 1982, in the Jackson Municipal Auditorium with Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran as the speaker. In July of 1982, the Jackson Public School District took over the funding of the APAC program. Since its opening in 1982, APAC has received thousands of dollars from Federal Magnet School Assistance Grants in the 1987-88 and 1988-89 school years; a grant from the same federal program resulted in approximately $2,000.00 being awarded for each of the 1989-90 and 1990-91 school years.

From 1982 until 1990, APAC was housed at Murrah High School. In 1990, the program was moved to Power Elementary School until being renamed in 2020 as Ida B. Wells APAC. The school began offering a full-day elementary program for fourth and fifth graders in both academics and the arts in August of 1992; prior to that time, the elementary classes were a pullout program with elementary students being bused in for their academic or performing classes from their local schools. Middle school and high school arts students have always been taught for two hours each with a pullout approach.

The exceptional Wells APAC faculty and staff work constantly to update and refine the performing arts curriculum, and strives to provide a quality performance exhibition for its students and to the public. APAC also works to maintain its strong working relationships with the International Ballet Competition, New Stage Theatre, the Mississippi Children’s Museum, the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Opera, and the Mississippi Museum of Art. 

For more information on admission requirements for a particular program, please click the secondary arts entry requirement PDF file link below. 

Secondary Arts Entry Requirements