Tag: The Creative Advantage

2017 Proposed Budget highlights for arts and culture

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Mayor Ed Murray delivered his 2017 Proposed Budget to the City Council yesterday, and I am pleased to inform you that he has proposed increased investments in arts and culture.

The Office’s programing is made possible through the 1% for Art ordinance for public art, and Admissions Tax allocation. With his proposed 2017-2018 Budget, Mayor Murray has increased the share of dedicated Admissions Tax from 80% to 100%. Admissions Tax funds all grant, arts education, and cultural space projects and programs, as well as administration for the Office.

This increase in Admissions Tax will fund several initiatives:

  • The new King Street Station cultural space, creating a new cultural hub bridging the Pioneer Square and Chinatown International District neighborhoods
  • A new $1M capital funding program starting in 2018, that will better respond to the capital campaigns of our cultural organizations
  • Increased investment in our Equity work, funding both new programming and staff capacity that will address historic and current inequitable access to arts resources.
  • We’ll also expand our partnership with Seattle Schools on The Creative Advantage, an initiative to put arts back into every classroom. This investment will develop a media arts skills center, which will expand access to creative careers for Seattle’s high school students.

With this proposed budget, Mayor Murray has outlined increasing investment in youth, arts and cultural organizations and in cultural facilities.

You may respond to these budget proposals by emailing Council members using the Council website linked below or attending one of the two Council budget hearings scheduled for the following dates:

  • October 5, 2016, 5:30 p.m., Seattle City Hall in Council Chambers; and
  • October 25, 2016, 5:30 p.m., Seattle City Hall in Council Chambers.

http://www.seattle.gov/council/

Many thanks to you for your continued support of our city’s arts and cultural landscape, and to Mayor Murray for including these proposals as part of his 2017-18 Proposed Budget.

Thank you,

Randy Engstrom

Director, Office of Arts & Culture

Recap: The Creative Advantage Arts Partner Summer Institute

The Creative Advantage kicked off the 2016-17 school year with its third annual Summer Institute in partnership with Seattle Art Museum. Over 100 teaching artists, administrators, classroom teachers, and youth development workers gathered for a day of learning, community building, and practice.  Sessions were facilitated by local artists, instructors, and national partners with topics ranging from Healing Justice in Arts Education (inspired by the work of Shawn Ginwright), The Entrepreneurial Teaching Artist, to Trauma-Informed Practice.  Participants also had opportunities to creatively engage and reflect by art discipline.

The morning plenary centered the role of racial equity and social justice in curriculum and approach. This included a deeply moving poem on structural barriers within education by Carlynn Newsome the 2016 Youth Speaks Seattle grand slam champion, followed by music and a story from Shontina Vernon, a mentor teaching artist with 4Culture’s Creative Justice program. Robyne Walker Murphy, Cultural Access Program Director at Cool Culture in Brooklyn, gave a stirring keynote entitled, “Empower, Create Connect: A Framework for Liberatory Education.”

The institute put front and center the values of practitioners working for creativity and justice in education, calling for narratives that position student voice and perspective as fundamental to high quality teaching and learning.

Next up: The Creative Advantage Professional Learning Series, beginning in January 2017.  For more information, sign up here.

Photo Jenny Crooks.

EMP Museum at Garfield High School

I wanted to share with you EMP Museum’s experience at Garfield HS as a Creative Advantage provider the past two years. This story is a testimony to all of your (Seattle Public Schools and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture) diligent years of work/advocacy for arts education resulting in The Creative Advantage, creating real impact for students and teachers. – Bonnie Showers, Curator, Education + Interpretive Services, Experience Music Project

EMP Museum, as a Creative Advantage provider, has had an exciting first two years at Garfield HS following our August 2014 Garfield HS All-Staff Arts in STEM  Professional Development training held at EMP and led by five of our professional teaching artists, funded by The Creative Advantage.

The result of that first Arts in STEM PD has led to excitement at Garfield about teaching through the arts in all subject areas.  As the first year of staff participants reported:  that 2014 all-staff training was the springboard, supporting development of a shared language and enthusiasm among teaching staff and administration.  They experienced multiple learning styles effectively addressed through the arts, and the enthusiastic creative learning that emerged.

In the last two years, supported by The Creative Advantage funding at Garfield, EMP has provided 22 five to 10-day arts-integrated residencies in multiple topics from geometry/paper engineering and sculpture, voice over for engineering students, graphic novel and visual narrative for language arts, wire sculpture for biology students, Theatre Skills and Performance for English language learners (ELL), video-making for Japanese language classes, to RHINO software and 3-D printing for ceramics students. Over 600 students and 10 teaching and library staff have participated in these arts integrated projects.

Teachers noted in residency evaluations higher student engagement, enthusiasm, success and increase in confidence. (We have evaluations from all participating staff and teaching artists for these projects, and a set of 2015-16 student-centered pre and post evaluations focused on tracking 21st Century skills, arts skills, and subject area target goals. 100% of participating teachers reported that their arts integrated objectives were met or significantly exceeded in all projects)

EMP has now been requested to provide a follow up Garfield HS ALL-staff PD  focused on STEM in Arts on August 30, 2016.

This training is 100% supported by Mr. Howard principal at Garfield HS. We are delighted,  as this request represents an evolution in thought: learning skills to teach through the arts is a priority.

I am so appreciative of Bonnie Hungate-Hawk, Garfield’s tireless arts team lead, with Janet Woodward, a dynamo of an arts librarian, and the team of participating teachers: 2014-15: Heather Snookal, Ian Sample, Nicolas Fell, Gwen Johnston; 2015-16: Alan Kahn, Rachel Eells, Mary Hopkins, Thomas Townsend, Janet Woodward, Michele Flett.

It has been a rich two years and we are looking forward in 2016-17 to supporting Garfield’s growth as an arts integrated rich learning environment, as one of our Outreach Partner Schools.

I would like to thank each of you for all your advocacy and support for arts learning opportunities for these students. When I saw the smiles of success and confidence on the ELL students faces last night at their Family Night performance, it was clear: The Creative Advantage has made it possible to reach these students, and these arts opportunities are making all the difference in their lives.

Best, Bonnie

Photos from ELL Family Night, theatre residencies in Mary Hopkins classes taught by Karen Harp Reed.

 

NEWS RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE MAYOR
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact:          Jason Kelly, Mayor’s Office Press Secretary, 206.684.8379
Erika Lindsay, Arts & Culture, 206.684.4337
Stacy Howard, Seattle Public Schools, 206.465.5404

 

City of Seattle, Seattle Public Schools deepen engagement,
improve access to arts education
The Creative Advantage program reaching 23 schools

SEATTLE (April 29, 2016) – The City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools today announced the year two progress of their joint Creative Advantage arts education initiative. Arts integration and 21st Century Skill-development deepened in the Central Arts Pathway, and the South-Southwest Arts Pathway developed a long-term arts vision and plan for schools in the region.

The Creative Advantage is a unique public-private partnership between the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS), Seattle Public Schools (SPS), The Seattle Foundation, and community arts partners. It is reinvesting in Seattle’s students and our community’s economic and creative future by intentionally and collaboratively addressing inequities in access to the arts and restoring arts education to all Seattle classrooms.

“We must invest in our students, and arts education is integral to their ability to problem solve, collaborate, think outside of the box and persevere,” said Mayor Ed Murray. “We are approaching our education system holistically from pre-K through 12th grade, utilizing the city’s rich cultural organizations to help empower our youth and close the opportunity gap in the arts.”

“We know students learn best when their education engages their heads, their hearts and their minds,” said Dr. Larry Nyland, Seattle Public Schools superintendent. “The Creative Advantage is a shining example of the district, the City and the community collaborating to give all students access to a well-rounded education.”

Arts are recognized as a core academic subject by the State of Washington and are included in the current Seattle Public Schools Strategic Plan. In alignment with these state and district policies, the goal of the Creative Advantage is to address the systemic barriers to student access to arts and ensure that every student has arts integrated into their education, starting in kindergarten. The long term goal is that all Seattle students will have access to a continuum of arts learning opportunities.

In March 2013, The Creative Advantage began implementation in the Central Arts Pathway, all schools that feed into and out of Washington Middle School. In 2014-15, The Creative Advantage began planning in the South-Southwest pathway, all schools that feed into and out of Denny International Middle School.

Highlights from the Creative Advantage Year Two Evaluation report include:

  • Developed a regional arts plan for South-Southwest Pathway schools.
  • Created a professional development series and annual institute for teaching artist and teachers with arts partner Seattle Art Museum.
  • In 2015-16, all K-5 students have access to music instruction in the Central Arts Pathway.
  • Increased the number of arts instructional minutes at the elementary level in the Central Arts Pathway by 200 percent from 2013 to 2015.
  • 26 residencies at 12 schools increasing student learning from teaching artists and arts organizations.
  • 34 percent increase from 2014 in student demonstration of 21st Century Learning Skills in Central Arts Pathway classrooms.
  • Increased partnerships with community organizations leading to culturally-responsive teaching and learning in Central Arts Pathway schools.

SPS and ARTS will continue to deepen integrated arts learning and close the access gap in the two Creative Advantage Arts Pathways, which includes 23 schools.

There is a Creative Advantage Advisory Group comprised of school staff, program leaders and community members to hold the program accountable and provide feedback. The City has prioritized this program through new staff capacity and an investment of $1.5 million in the program to date.

The School District has invested $1.75 million in increased staffing, supplies and professional development, while there has been increased capacity through fundraising from grants, including the National Endowment for the Arts, Laird Norton Family Foundation and the Clowes Fund, foundations and individuals to date.

To read the full report, click here: http://www.creativeadvantageseattle.org/go-deeper/

 

The Creative Advantage can be found online at www.CreativeAdvantageSeattle.org, at facebook.com/TheCreativeAdvantage and on twitter @SeattleArtsEd.

 

 

Creative Advantage on Seattle Channel

 

The Creative Advantage initiative continues the hard work of integrating arts education back into Seattle Public Schools. Seattle Channel host Brian Callanan talks to experts about why an arts education is important and how this new initiative is creating the conditions for all young people to be more creative, innovative and imaginative.

http://www.seattlechannel.org/explore-videos?videoid=x60663