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Grant Funding for WCSD Arts Infusion Project Renewed for Third Year
Reno, NV (Jan. 11, 2012) - For the third year in a row, students at six Washoe County School District schools that are involved with the Arts Infusion Project will receive additional classroom instruction in arts integration by teachers who have participated in special training.
The U.S. Department of Education notified WCSD that funding for the third year would be renewed, bringing the total amount awarded to more than $1 million during the course of the 2009-12 performance period. The District received a three-year Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) grant in the fall of 2009.
Martha O'Neill, project director for the PDAE grant, says that more than 130 teachers have received professional development in arts integration during the past two years. Professional teaching artists from Sierra Arts Foundation provide professional development in dance, theatre and visual arts. In addition, she said, they were awarded a $9,593 dissemination grant to present results from the grant in various venues.
Presentations were made by team members at a number of conferences, including the 2011 National Art Education Association (NAEA) National Conference and the Arts Education Partnership (AEP) National Forum held in San Francisco. The topic of the symposium was "Transforming Urban School Systems through the Arts."
Sierra Arts Interim Executive Director Stacey Spain said, "Sierra Arts has been delivering arts education in WCSD schools since 1976. This expansion of our programming to include teacher training means we will impact many more students over the course of each of our trained teachers' careers. The artists have been so happy to share their skills and passion for the arts with the amazing education professionals who have chosen to participate in the Arts Academies."
The music component is provided by Kathryn Judson from Melton Elementary and Dawn Roskelley from Cannan Elementary who have designed a program called Mindful Music, which gives teachers the inherent structure of music to particularly assist LEP students in language acquisition and vocabulary development.
Administrators, a classroom teacher, and other team members have attended the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts summer programs the past two years. In 2010 the focus was Changing Education through the Arts (CETA) - Arts Integration Schools: What, Why, and How and in 2011 the focus was Arts Integration - Exploring an Approach to Teaching.
Palmer Elementary Principal Sue Parks says she sees the increased attention to the arts at her school, which is one receiving the grant funding. "Many Palmer teachers are taking Art Infusion classes. The quality and length of student writing has increased greatly for teachers using the strategies and lessons learned through Arts Infusion. Our students are proud of the products displayed around the building and often come up to me to have me review their work. Thank you Arts Infusion!"
Bennett Elementary Principal Michael Henry said, "When observing lessons being taught by teachers that have participated in the Arts Infusion training I see lessons that create active engagement for all students and lessons that require students to use high-level thinking skills. The lessons also provide opportunities for students to develop kinesthetic and fine motor skills as well as having fun."
In the third and final year of the Arts Infusion grant, the focus on the trainings will be on sustainability through the train the trainer model so that the valuable teaching tools in arts integration will not be lost once the final funds of the grant are spent. An intensive week-long summer program will be offered in the summer of 2012 to teachers who have shown a great deal of aptitude for the program in the four arts areas: dance, music, theater, and visual arts.
The goal of the program is to prepare the coaching teachers at their sites in the varied trainings they have received, including Arts Academies - an art form paired with a core subject - and ArtBoxes - week-long units with five ready-made thematic arts integrated lessons that address both arts standards and other academic content area standards. Each ArtBox comes complete with materials and supplies necessary for implementing each lesson. An example of an upcoming ArtBox is titled We Don't Bully Here: Readers Theater. The third area is Mindful Music designed and taught by two WCSD elementary general music teachers.
"All too often, budget cuts take away some of the most beneficial and stimulating programs. As a teacher, I learned many ways to improve my teaching by using art and music. I was amazed at how easily and enthusiastically my students reacted when I incorporated the arts into my classroom teaching. Language arts came to life!" said Carol Perrigo, language arts teacher at Sparks Middle School.
Dr. Margaret Ferrara, associate professor of curriculum, teaching and learning at University of Nevada, Reno said "The beauty of the art program is that it is now becoming the teachers' tools for teaching content. This year, teachers are using all of the arts - visual, dance, theater and music - as a natural part of their teaching. It is equally as exciting to see teachers who have been in the program sharing their new ways of teaching with other teachers. And of course, what is most important is to see students actively engaged in learning through creative assignments linking the arts to reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies."
"The Arts Infusion program at our grantee schools has had a profound impact on classroom instruction and student engagement and student learning. It is the great desire of the WCSD Fine Arts Department to find a way to continue to expand the practice of arts infused teaching in our schools," said David Branson, the District's Fine Arts/Music Administrator.
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About Washoe County School District: The Washoe County School District includes the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area, Incline Village, Gerlach, Empire and Wadsworth, Nevada. The District provides each of its 63,000 students with a superior education in a safe and challenging environment and is committed to graduate every child career and college ready.
For more information visit: www.washoecountyschools.org. Follow us on Twitter at WCSDTweet.
Washoe County School District
425 East Ninth Street
Reno, NV 89512
