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Seattle Public Schools releases report from arts education meetings

Earlier this year, Seattle Public Schools (SPS) partnered with the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and arts organizations to host several citywide focus groups to capture the perspectives and desires of community members and students on arts education. SPS has released a report with the findings from these meetings.

Download the report here.

The meetings were part of the Seattle K-12 Arts Learning Collaborative to create a comprehensive arts plan to ensure all students in SPS schools have opportunities to learn through the arts.

The report shows that community respondents want arts access to be consistent across the school district. They believe that arts learning builds skills such as innovation and collaboration and should be used by teachers as part of an instructional approach. Community members also believe that arts curricula need to be updated to be multi-cultural, representative, relevant to students, broader in scope and integrated with other content areas.

Student respondents want exposure and access to all four disciplines (dance, music, theater, and visual arts) that is early, broad and guided by professional arts instructors; opportunities to learn about arts careers; and opportunities to showcase and share their learning.

We will partner with SPS to host a public meeting in the fall to update on the K-12 Arts Learning Collaborative and the arts plan. Stay tuned for details.

The arts education planning work is made possible by a grant that SPS received from national philanthropy The Wallace Foundation. The creation of the arts plan builds on the multi-year Arts Education Partnership between the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and Seattle Public Schools. Go here for more information on the partnership.