Gracie Hobbs

STIVERS SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS

“A lot of people knock on DPS, like I’ve heard that my whole life,” said Gracie Hobbs, explaining how people react when she says she attends Dayton schools.

“They kind of groan like it’s a bad school and, I’m like, ‘No, we’re probably better than you,’ ” she said. “You know, in the most humble way.”

Hobbs graduated this year from Stivers School for the Arts. She is an accomplished artist. A watercolor painting she made of a building behind the school won a firstplace regional award. Her charcoal drawings are amazing.

She plans to attend Ohio State University with help from a scholarship program only available to students at the large urban districts, including DPS.

There, she wants to study athletic training and someday get a doctorate in physical therapy.

She learned about sports medicine from playing volleyball much of her life, including at Stivers, where she also played softball.

Before Stivers, she attended Horace Mann Pre-K-6. And in addition to playing sports, learning the arts and graduating with a 3.9 GPA, Hobbs said she learned from being surrounded by students of different races and sexual identities.

“There’s so much diversity, but that’s in all of DPS. That’s one of the main things I love about it, too,” she said. “It has broadened my perspective on the world.”