About Wells

Overview

Welcome to Wells Performing Arts Complex, formerly Wells Academic and Performing Arts Complex, Jackson Public Schools’ innovative preparatory academy, now renamed and reinvigorated following approval by the JPS Board of Trustees. The name change signals our renewed commitment to preparing scholars for college, career, and civic leadership with a sharper focus on personalized, accelerated learning in the arts, sciences, and leadership pathways.

History

Wells PAC is named in honor of Ida B. Wells, investigative journalist, educator and early leader in the Civil Rights movement and one of the founders of the NAACP, who dedicated her lifetime to combating prejudice and violence, and fought for African-American equality, especially for women.

For four decades, the Academic and Performing Arts Complex (APAC) of Jackson Public School District has implemented and sustained a vision that was developed in 1980. In 1982, with the aid of an Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Magnet Grant, APAC began at Murrah High School. In 1990, the APAC program was placed in the Power Elementary School building on Riverside Drive, which, in 2020, was renamed Ida B. Wells APAC.

Over the years, APAC has been awarded hundreds of honors and recognitions for excellence in academics, arts education, dance, theatre, music and visual arts.  It has been named a National Blue Ribbon School (2003) and given the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts National Schools of Distinction in Arts Education Award (2011).

In 2025, the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees renamed Wells APAC to Wells PAC.

Our Mission and Vision

At Wells PAC, we continue to uphold a rigorous, academically accelerated program that challenges and supports students to excel. Our mission is to cultivate critical thinkers, creative problem‐solvers, and compassionate leaders who are prepared to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Through small‐group instruction, advanced coursework, project‐based learning, and strategic partnerships, Wells PAC offers a learning environment where every student is known, challenged, and supported.

Our Overarching Goals

Our students will graduate from high school on time and get to and through college.

Beliefs

• Student learning is our chief priority because all students can learn and be successful.
• Students are valued as individuals and their diverse backgrounds are respected.
• Students should be expected to reach their full potential as they are given a variety of opportunities for success.
• Assessment of student learning should provide students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their achievement.
• A quality education for our students should be a shared responsibility between teachers, administrators, parents, students, and the community.
• The school should be a facility that adapts to change in order to provide information and knowledge needed for students to become confident lifelong learners.

Student Pledge

 “We Are Readers. We Are Learners. We Are Thinkers. We Are Achievers.”

Community Adopters

• Midtown Law Office
• Warrior Nation Ministries