It’s their diamond in the rough.
Theatre Arts Production Company School in The Bronx is surrounded by rundown buildings and sidewalks littered with broken glass — but students say that inside, it’s a bright and motivating haven.
That’s how the “little engine that could,” in Principal Lynn Passarella’s words, ranked first in the city on school report cards yesterday — after graduating nearly 94 percent of its students this past school year.
In addition to its competitive drama program, the school — which had six applicants for every open ninth-grade slot — reported that 99 percent of freshmen earned enough credits last year to be on track to graduate.
“We knew we were doing well, but this was better than anything we could imagine,” said Passarella (right), 45. “We’re a Cinderella story: We beat the best, we beat all the ‘money’ schools.”
The former middle school expanded to a high school in 2005 after staffers noticed their former students hanging out on street corners.
Now those kids are graduating and going on to colleges like NYU, Tulane and Syracuse — with their acceptance letters proudly pinned to hallway bulletin boards.
“They’ve gotten more organized, more strict . . . They’re really buckling down on us, making quizzes harder, giving us harder books to read,” said senior Sapphire Roman, 17. “I love ‘TAPCo’ . . . It’s just a very good school and it feels like family.”
Junior Will Cruz said the school, whose student-poverty rate is 17 percentage points below the citywide average of 74 percent, was good at driving healthy competition among kids.
“Since we’re such a small school, teachers are able to really focus on individual people,”
he said.