Arts for ALL
Themes: Align, Leverage, Learn
Categories: Categories are broken out by Tier (1, 2 and 3) as defined below:
Tier 1: Most impactful recommendation based on data and research. This recommendation comes under the assumption that there is high level of resources, maintenance and/or work effort involved to implement.
Tier 2: Moderate level of resources and work effort involved to implement.
Tier 3: Low level of resources and work effort involved to implement.
After thorough examination of the research and data, ideation sessions were conducted amongst the NELP team to culminate all of our learnings into the below recommendations. These recommendations are tied to three clear themes: Align, Leverage and Learn. As a result, the brand of “Arts for ALL” has naturally emerged.
The recommendations are organized by theme and tier as outlined above.
Arts Advisory Group for Sacramento: A full collective impact model, including senior leadership representing the districts, the city, the arts non-profits, and the community. Following the collective impact model, they should 1) create a shared agenda and purpose; 2) identify common progress measures and outcome-focused metrics; 3) design mutually-reinforcing activities; 4) create a clear, regular, and transparent process for communication; and fund a backbone organization to serve as a facilitator and manager of the collaborative.
Student Seat on SMAC: Create a permanent student seat on the SMAC Board of Commissioners, available to an 8th-12th grader who can provide the student perspective to the commission and play an active role in shaping arts education in the region.
Center for Arts Education (Maker Lab / Creativity Center), focused on hands on exposure: Create a brick-and-mortar physical center dedicated to arts education for students to call their “own”. A place where students can let their creative imagination go! An excellent benchmark for this model to consider is the Inner-City Arts center in Los Angeles. A space for school field trips, art education, and creative engagement in art through multiple mediums. The Inner-City Arts center has become the epicenter of arts and creativity for K-12 in LA. A scaled down version for Sacramento to start with could prove quite beneficial for Northern CA: Inner City Arts Link.
Arts Providers Advisory Group: Create an advisory group wherein each art provider organization in the area is represented. Ideally, this group should meet regularly (Monthly or Quarterly) in order to keep everyone apprised of the latest happenings and efforts in their respective organizations. In addition, it would serve as a platform to identify potential redundancies and opportunities for greater collaboration.
Student Showcase: Partner with or create an available space for students to demonstrate art that is most meaningful to them. Consider a rotating model with multiple locations. This could be as simple as displaying art in the hallways of City Hall or other public events/areas.
Improve communications: Create a bare-bones way for arts providers and schools to stay up-to-date on the area’s offerings and efforts, such as a Facebook page, a newsletter, etc.
Consistent channel for student voice & feedback: Create a process or platform by which to capture student voice and feedback on their arts experiences and recommendations. This could be as simple as a wiki or even annual surveying.
Public space for student art: A permanent, high-traffic public area that can showcase student art. This city is so great at showcasing artists through public art and murals, so it’d be great to see students included in that movement, and it would inspire other students.
Arts Lead at every school and at every district: Hire a dedicated arts lead for each of the five districts in the region, as well as for each school within those districts. The district level arts leads will be responsible for organizing the various offerings in the region and securing the necessary funding (pushing art into the schools); each school-level arts lead will be responsible for advocating for his/her school and bringing specific projects in (pulling art into the school).
Art Ed Yelp: Build a digital platform that allows principals, teachers, students and parents to rate various arts providers. The goal here is to add a lens of quality to what’s out there, in that not all arts providers offer the same level of quality or service. Having this rating will allow principals/teachers/parents/students to more knowledgeably access and advocate for high-quality arts programming and holds programs accountable for quality.
Arts Lead Cluster Model: Hire a dedicated arts lead for each of the five school districts in the region AND one arts lead at the school-level for every 5-7 schools (school cluster). This is a scaled down version of Recommendation Tier 1 #1; however, instead of having a dedicated arts lead for each school, every grouping of 5-7 schools will share one arts lead.
Arts Supply & Provider Inventory: Create a centralized list of all arts providers in the region, including a profile on what they offer, contact information, as well as a centralized list of all art supplies in the district. This, which will allow schools to better share existing resources.
Transportation for students: Transportation was identified as a significant hurdle as to why schools couldn’t access all the arts opportunities they wanted to. Increase funding for school buses for the most underserved schools.
Arts Lead at every district: Expand the current model and hire a dedicated arts lead for each of the five districts.
Provider inventory: Create a centralized list of all arts providers in the region (with info about what they offer and their contact info).
Targeted outreach to underserved: Some of the most underserved schools might need more support to know what arts education options are available and how to access them. Easy for arts leads to do (for districts that actually have arts leads).
Point-person at every school for arts related issues: Consider utilizing a current staff member at each school to be the designated “art lead” (the go-to person for all things art related). This will be the person a district-level arts lead can contact, and someone who can coordinate with outside arts providers.
Arts Ed Study mission: Organize arts providers, principals, arts leads, etc. for a trip to another city to learn and see first-hand how they do what they do with arts education.
Partnership w/ major regional arts organizations (philharmonics, ballets, artists, etc.) for arts mentorship to district and school arts leads: Build mentorships between the region’s top arts organizations and each district, helping each district shape its art offering and gaining access to the region’s best art minds and offerings. For example, the Executive Director of the Sacramento Philharmonic and /Opera could help mentor the arts lead for Twin Rivers, helping the district think creatively about how to access the various arts offerings in the region.
Sister schools (ID top performing schools as mentors): Within each district, create pairs of schools to learn from one another re: arts education. For top performing schools, tap them to be mentors to a lower-performing sister school.
Partnership w/local community college & university for arts mentorship to underserved classrooms: Collaborate with local community colleges, CSU, Sacramento and UC Davis to create an internship program specifically for arts in public schools. In addition, create a similar mentorship model by partnering with higher education arts faculty and aspiring student artists for mentorship with schools.
Grant writing training: Provide grant writing training to arts leads in order to better equip them to secure arts education funding. Consider, partnering with an outside expert to provide the training.
Centralized repository of best practices: Curate and maintain a centralized database of arts education best practices (in the region and in the field in general). This database would have empirical studies, lesson plans, teaching techniques, etc.
Local artists brought in for guest presentations to students to increase arts exposure: Recruit artists and bring them into schools on a regular basis.
Raise awareness of arts education needs and opportunities: On the mayor’s website, share the data regarding where the Sacramento-area districts are in regards to providing quality arts education, share best practices for Sacramento schools. The purpose: to raise awareness for the general public and the schools.