Teaching art on a shoestring budget

Area schools turn to their communities to help keep art programs alive

By Anna Pratt (April 11, 2007)

Originally published in The Bridge

On a sunny Saturday in February, about 300 people packed the Eagles Club, 2507 E. 25th St., for the second annual “Bands for Band,” a rock ’n’ roll fundraiser for the music program at Anne Sullivan Communication Center. The event brought in $7,000 through donations, raffles and silent auctions for the Anne Sullivan program, which had been discontinued three years ago due to cuts in the Minneapolis Public Schools budget.

Now, thanks to a $25,000 grant in 2006 from the VH-1 Save the Music Foundation and further donations from residents and businesses, 86 of Anne Sullivan’s 728 students play in band.

Anne Sullivan is just one of many Minneapolis public schools passing the collection plate to sustain arts initiatives that are under-funded yet valued by many. School arts advocates cite concrete evidence to support arts education, such as a positive influence on attendance and test scores.

Still, some schools struggle to maintain arts programs on a shoestring budget of $3 or less per student per year, according to at least one arts educator. Other programs have been slashed entirely.

Pat Teske, district fine arts coordinator for Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), said she’s optimistic about the future of arts education, in part because of heightened awareness of the significant role it plays in learning. “We’re looking at every way we can to support standards for arts in schools, and for them to be part of the budget process,” she said.

Pulling for the arts

Anne Sullivan Principal David Branch said that, despite recent cutbacks, the school’s art programs are still alive thanks to a supportive community, and there’s hope to expand the program’s hours and grade levels. To fulfill that dream, the school needs to raise $24,000 by the end of this year and $40,000 next year. Bolstered by the recent benefit, band boosters will reach out to local businesses for more funding.

Branch spoke about the importance of an arts curriculum. “There’s a connection between math and band, and learning vocabulary through music and art. It enriches a school community so much more,” said Branch.

Like Anne Sullivan, Marcy Open School also looks to its neighbors for arts funding. The Marcy Arts Partnership (MAP), comprised of parents, teachers and community members, organizes the annual MAP Gala, to be held April 14. The event, now in its sixth year, typically draws a crowd of over 200 people, according to Margie Siegel, a parent volunteer. Last year’s gala brought in $15,000.

Seeded in 1996 with a grant from the Minnesota Arts & Education Partnership Program, MAP’s mission is to forge partnerships with local arts organizations, the larger community and businesses to integrate arts into all aspects of the regular curriculum. Collaborations include folk dance lessons, poetry from resident artists, and training from the Children’s Theatre, Guthrie Theater and Youth Performance Company, said first-year Marcy Principal Donna Andrews.

MAP also works with Arts for Academic Achievement, an arts integration program that supplies schools with sizable grants to pursue individual projects like the mural South High School visual art students finished last summer.

Although he’s spent hours drafting grant proposals, Mark Wald, an art educator at South, said, “A grant isn’t a Band-Aid for everything.”

South is currently in the process of becoming an arts magnet and hopes to add an intermediary choir section next year, according to music teacher Scott Carter. About 20 percent of South’s student body is enrolled in music, and the school charges admission to concerts.

Ellen Murphy, principal of both Tuttle and Pratt schools, said integrating arts education into the curriculum gets kids engaged. “It gives them a better sense of themselves individually,” she said.

Last fall, in conjunction with Tuttle’s bully prevention program, the students erected life-size plywood figures reflecting common stereotypes, along with text to dispel the misconceptions. “You have to look at what’s on the inside,” said eighth-grader Lesley Garcia, who helped create the sculptures.

Armed with a $600 grant from Home Depot, the students came up with the concept, wrote the text, sketched the designs and then cut, sanded and painted the figures using the tools of the artistic trade. “Part of what was important to me was that they work from the raw materials and stuff that real artists use,” said Katy Warner, Tuttle’s visual art teacher and middle school coordinator.

Finally, the kids installed the figures in front of the school, only to have them vandalized, leaving a scheduled opening event in question. The students voted to leave the sculptures up and go on with the art opening. “They were really proud of the work they did,” said Warner.

The big picture

Instrumental music and visual arts have suffered in recent years, according to the MPS’s Comprehensive Arts Plan for 2006–2009. Arts programs grew from 1995 to 2003 but were later eroded by dwindling enrollment, cutbacks and changing federal priorities, according to the report. In 2005 and 2006, eight schools lacked a general music educator, and 10 schools didn’t employ a visual arts educator. One school had no arts staff at all. Dance, theater and media specialists were rare.

The report’s summary states: “We know that the arts have intrinsic value. The arts engage, inform, record, transform. And they inspire. We also know that the arts are valuable for the sake of education.”

At a MPS School Board meeting in January, MPS Chief Academic Officer Bernadeia Johnson presented a new academic agenda, titled “Effort and Equity for Excellence,” which underscores the arts as an essential curriculum. Last year, MPS made art a graduation requirement. The state soon followed suit, requiring a credit in visual, theater, music, dance or media for 2008 seniors.

However, over the next three years, MPS will face a deficit of $64.5 million, mainly from inadequate state funding that hasn’t kept up with the rate of inflation and declining enrollment, said School Board member Tom Madden. In 2003, statewide cuts totaled $185 million for K–12 education, according to the Alliance for a Better Minnesota.

With a new budget to be finalized in April, Madden said it’s too early to predict how the next round of budget cuts will affect the arts. But he said the new academic agenda testifies to the district’s commitment to sustaining them. “Now it’s [MPS] saying, ‘This is what we want to provide,’” he said.

Teske, the district’s fine arts coordinator, hopes it is possible. “My greatest hope is that every student has access to the arts,” she said. “I feel quite hopeful, but the problem is a funding issue. That’s the bottom line.”