The mission of Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts (SMAPA) is to provide inclusive, comprehensive developmental training in dance and related theatre arts to children, teens, and adults without regard to racial or cultural ethnicity or economic background. SMAPA's philosophy of teaching focuses on exploring and nurturing the creative possibilities within every student and is designed to develop the whole person by building skills, stimulating creativity, and fostering self-discipline and self-esteem.

SMAPA was founded in 1996 by Sharron Miller - Juilliard-trained, former soloist with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Broadway veteran. Year-round training at SMAPA's facility is offered to more than 1,000 students in three divisions: Preschool (2-5), Junior (6-11), and Teen/Adult (12 and up). The most advanced students from the Teen/Adult and Junior Divisions are invited to join SMAPA's Performance Workshop Ensemble (PWE). Fifteen students on full merit-based scholarship currently comprise the PWE, receiving the opportunity to work with directors and choreographers on presentational material to be performed within the community.

Beyond classes held at the Montclair facility, SMAPA is committed to developing and implementing meaningful customized in-school arts education experiences with hundreds of young people in collaboration with area public schools. In 1997 SMAPA developed a three-year, sequential arts education pilot program in dance and drama for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students at The Renaissance Middle School of Montclair, which continues today.

In the fall of 2004, SMAPA introduced a pilot arts program at Newark's Samuel L. Berliner School benefiting its students classified with emotional and behavioral disabilities, in what is considered for most to be their "last chance school." SMAPA has expanded that program to reach the majority of Berliner's student body. An arts education program for all first graders of Newark's Quitman Street Community School began in September 2005, with a second grade program added in September 2006. At Irvington's Chancellor Avenue School, an in-school program for fourth and fifth graders was launched in September 2006.

SMAPA is dedicated to developing the whole child and nurturing the creative possibilities within every student through the arts. No student is ever turned away, and participating students reflect the richly diverse cultural and ethnic populations of Montclair's Essex County and the surrounding counties of Hudson, Passaic, Morris, Union, Middlesex, Mercer, Monmouth, and Somerset.