Question of the Week

Question of the week

Why do the quality of performing arts programs vary so much between schools? How can we develop better arts involvement from elementary up through high school?

From the division level, over the last few years, we have been working on unified curriculum frameworks for all courses, including the arts.

All elementary schools are funded and staffed by School Board-determined thresholds equitably from the division's annual operating budget by enrollment. All students in elementary schools engage in both visual art and music classes at least once a week. 

Middle school is a time of exploration for students, and we offer multiple choices for their electives. Elective programs, including art and music, at the middle school level are determined by course requests from students. Because of the way middle school electives are scheduled, it is difficult to share specific data on how those courses are populated, but we have very high engagement with the arts at the middle school level. We currently have 2,930 students in all grades 6 through 8. Arts classes show 3,762 students (counting students who enroll in more than one course twice) enrolled in middle school arts electives, which indicates to me that most, if not all, students are enrolled in at least one arts course at the middle school level.

All three of our comprehensive high schools have robust arts programs that offer a wide variety of both performing arts and visual arts options from beginner to advanced and post-secondary levels (AP and Dual Enrollment). These programs are also dependent on course requests by students at each school. Our charter school offers several arts courses that also align with International Baccalaureate principles. Across all of our high schools, total enrollment is 4,510 in grades 9 through 12. Participation in arts programming, as of October 18th, is 3,422. So it appears that the majority of high school students are currently engaging in arts programs even with some double counting. Please contact me with any questions. Thank you! 

Answer provided by Dama Schneider, Lead Coach for the Arts

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