ESD 113 Capital Region Educational Service District

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Music, Visual Art

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

I’m a farmer and a bookkeeper with a Batchelor’s in Science, so I can’t say my experiences in the arts impacted my life, but I can say they were a welcomed balance to my other courses. That being said, had I shown potential in these courses, it could have changed my direction. I do believe the arts are important, and support having the flexible credits to give students the opportunity to explore other paths that they may not have considered or been exposed to.

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Research current arts program and assess needs throughout the district

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

To be honest, I am not overly familiar with the arts programs in the Chehalis schools. If I have the good fortune to be elected, I will look into this further, and will bring ideas for solutions to the board to address any shortcomings the school district may have.

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

Through life, I have found my mental health benefits when engaging in various forms of the arts such as listening to music, dancing to my favorite songs, or creating a display or craft project, it helps me cope during stressful times. Having personally experienced these benefits, and the balance it brings, will allow me to be a better advocate for the importance of arts as an integral part in helping a student succeed.

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Music, Theatre, Visual Art

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

I took every drafting class and woodshop class offered in my high school, along with traditional art. I studied Architecture and Planning, as well as Apparel Design and Merchandising while attending college. Art classes in high school provided me with an outlet from stress and anxiety as an adult.

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Research current arts program and assess needs throughout the district
• Work for a budget to finacially support arts instruction at all schools
• Create a local arts education task-force
• Develop or update a district level arts plan
• Develop or expand district support for teaching artist residencies
• Support arts inclusion professional development opportunities for classroom teachers
• Support trauma-informed, culturally responsive professional development for arts teachers
• Expand district-wide data collection for tracking and accountability
• Seek out insights from local PTAs, Booster Clubs, and arts organizations

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

Griffin School District has just this year hired a dedicated art teacher. In order to make “art instruction…accessible by all students in a manner that is commensurate with other core subject areas,” all of our classroom teachers will need to be supported by this single art teacher. Ideally, a curriculum will be developed for each grade level that the art teacher will oversee. It will be challenging for our small school, but definitely doable and absolutely necessary, whether its required or not!

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

For many students, arts education can have a profound impact on student success in several ways. It provides a safe outlet for students to express their emotions. It can help students develop resilience and coping skills. Art fosters a sense of belonging and positively impacts self-esteem and can reduce stress and anxiety. Culturally responsive arts education helps students understand and appreciate diverse perspectives. At Griffin School District, we aren’t able to offer our students a lot of elective or extracurricular activities. Art is a necessary addition to our curriculum.

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Music, Visual Art

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

Appreciation of Music genre

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Support arts inclusion professional development opportunities for classroom teachers
• Seek out insights from local PTAs, Booster Clubs, and arts organizations
• Parents involvement

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

Become better informed of current regulations which impact our district success

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

Optional career opportunities

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Media Arts, Music, Theatre, Visual Art

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

As a student who pursued arts throughout my education, I know that it had a great impact on helping me develop essential skills that are transferable to many parts of my life, such as communication, organization, teamwork, persistence, and flexible thinking.

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Research current arts program and assess needs throughout the district
• Work for a budget to finacially support arts instruction at all schools
• Develop or expand district support for teaching artist residencies
• Support arts inclusion professional development opportunities for classroom teachers
• Support trauma-informed, culturally responsive professional development for arts teachers
• I think it's important for us in Olympia to work collaboratively with the Inspire Olympia Cultural Access program so that we make sure any work they are doing isn't complimentary to the programming we're doing in schools rather than duplicative.

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

In Olympia, we’re already doing what 5878 calls for and often more. I do think the one area we have the most opportunity for growth is in collaborating with the arts and music teachers to make sure there is vertical alignment about what our districtwide continuum should look like. Since our art/music/PE expansion is still relatively new, that hasn’t quite happened.

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

When we started our family liaison program during COVID, we asked those staff members to help us establish an Olympia specific vision for what culturally responsive family engagement should look like (with an emphasis on a dual capacity model). I hope we can use a similar process to help us formalize that approach to arts education. From my own observations during school visits, I would say some of the places that are doing that work in really exciting ways are our elementary music and art classrooms. Students are learning about a wide variety of musical and artistic traditions, exploring world languages, and using artistic expression as a vehicle for exploring self–it’s quite inspiring.

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Music, Theatre

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

I became an artist and 40 year teacher of theatre. I was a writer on the National Core Arts Standards, I was induced into the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA) national and state Hall of Fame and won the Golden Apple Award because my theatre students nominated me. Art has literally been my life.

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Research current arts program and assess needs throughout the district
• Work for a budget to finacially support arts instruction at all schools
• Create a local arts education task-force
• Develop or update a district level arts plan
• Develop or expand district support for teaching artist residencies
• Support arts inclusion professional development opportunities for classroom teachers
• Support trauma-informed, culturally responsive professional development for arts teachers
• Expand district-wide data collection for tracking and accountability
• Seek out insights from local PTAs, Booster Clubs, and arts organizations
• allow arts staff to have time to work together professionally

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

The support of SB5878 requires not only art in high school for the graduation credit discussed in this bill but art throughout the educational experience of the student. When I taught high school theatre students would say to me, “I’d like to take your class, but I don’t know anything about theatre.” To which I would reply “Is that what you say to your chemistry teacher? I’d like to take chemistry, but I don’t know anything about it.” “No, that is absurd. You expect that the chemistry teacher will teach you that art just I will teach you theatre.” Students need be exposed to art from a young age just as they are science, math, and reading. The difference is that a child may go their whole life at home and in school never hearing a concert, seeing a play, browsing in a museum, or attending to the ballet. It is critical that the schools help students open this door to themselves as artists. The Arts are a Core Subject by federal and state law. Let’s start treating them that way.

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

It is vital that students be part of social justice to feel themselves within the art. It is the most important thing we can do in education is allow students a voice to speak to their feelings, worries, experiences, and to give flight to how they see the future. This is possible every single day. For 20 years I taught theatre where each year students wrote, directed, acted, danced and sung new works that they created in and outside the classroom. They spoke of their trauma, their lives, their needs, their cultural experience by putting it on stage for all to see. This was the best work I did as teacher whether it is the young girl who taught seven others to do traditional Thai dancing none of whom were Thai as she was, the 9th grader who wrote a play about a boy coming of age and attempting to hide his homosexual feelings, or the group of ten students who put rap music to skater moves on stage while a narrator pronounced a slam poem. These students put everything in their being into their art and it was critical to listen to them. Let’s allow each student a clear and unrestrained voice through the arts.

Which of these arts did you have as a part of your own K-12 education?

Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre, Visual Art

How did the arts impact your education and life after high school?

My life has been 100% impacted by Art! I was always creating art or in some form of art class for as long as I can remember. I was also a visual art teachers assistant in high school. After high school I went to the Evergreen State College where I received my Bachelor of Arts Degree with a focus on fine arts, cultural arts and art history. After college I learned AutoCAD drafting and became a land survey drafter, drawing property maps and other forms of computer aided drafting. Today, I am still involved in land surveys, consistently creating visual art and I am very involved in dance, music and promoting the arts in my community.

If elected, which of these strategies would you consider to support arts education in your district?

• Research current arts program and assess needs throughout the district
• Work for a budget to finacially support arts instruction at all schools
• Create a local arts education task-force
• Develop or update a district level arts plan
• Develop or expand district support for teaching artist residencies
• Support trauma-informed, culturally responsive professional development for arts teachers
• Seek out insights from local PTAs, Booster Clubs, and arts organizations

How do you plan to support and implement SB5878 this school year?

At a time when many districts are coming up short on funding and deciding that they should cut Arts programs to save on funds, I do not consider that as an option and I am happy to see thatSB5878 is making Arts a graduation requirement. The district I am going to be serving is only K-8 and I would definitely like to make sure that Arts programs, like music and band, continue to be a weekly required class or extra curricular activity for students. I would also encourage after school Arts programs for students that would like even more Art in their lives.

Arts education which incorporates trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices can be uniquely beneficial, especially during this challenging period in history. How do you see the arts playing a role in student success in your district?

Art in its many forms is a wonderful way for students to express themselves and their feelings. It is important for students to have that outlet in order to process what they are going through as young people, in a way that is educational and meaningful to them at the same time. I believe that communication through art is wonderful and encouraging for students to get their ideas out there when verbal communication of their ideas can be difficult.