The Art Works for Kids teaching model is improving the quality of education and academic performance in Utah schools in truly unique and impressive ways. Highlighted here are schools whose programs have demonstrated remarkable results in students’ educational experiences and personal lives.
Iron Springs Woodrow Wilson Belknap Oakridge Monroe Dixie Sun James Madison
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Iron Springs Elementary, Iron County
Alisa Petersen—Visual Arts Specialist
Teachers, parents, and students are delighted with the success of the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program at Iron Springs Elementary School. Teachers are elated to know that after the program was introduced, the school has seen statistical success manifested in core subjects. Parents are pleased to know their students are taught by a highly qualified and capable arts specialist. Students are happy to have a creative outlet that helps them understand difficult concepts.
Since introducing the BTSALP, end of level test results in fourth grade science jumped a substantial 22 percent. Throughout the year, arts specialist Alisa Petersen integrated visual art into core subjects, including science, to maximize student understanding and retention of difficult subjects. One such project—taught in correlation with the fourth grade science core that saw such astonishing results—taught students about how and where imprint fossils are formed in nature, using the artistic principles of positive and negative shapes.
Fourth grade teacher Kim Almond saw how the art project bolstered her students’ understanding in science: “I felt like [the project] really helped solidify for my students what that kind of fossil is all about.”
Parents at Iron Springs Elementary have also seen the effect integrated arts has had on their children. One mother, Celeste Johnson, explained how three of her children have grown, each in different ways, due to this unique art program. After learning artistic concepts, her son found the confidence to pursue his desire to create art. Now he is often found doodling or sketching instead of playing video games. Her youngest daughter “is in love with the arts program,” and has even been brought closer to her sister as they work on art projects around the house. Although her oldest daughter has struggled to find confidence in her schoolwork, the arts program has “improved her understanding and retention” of other school subjects as her brain was taught in more than one way.
“I am forever grateful,” Johnson said. “The fact that my kids have a safe and fun way to express their personalities, feelings, and improve upon their school work makes this one of the most important subjects being taught in schools.”
Woodrow Wilson Elementary, Granite
Rosemary Mitchell—Visual Arts Specialist
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way—things I had no words for.”
— Georgia O’Keefe, famous American artist
The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program has fostered the celebration of art as a universal language for teachers, students, and parents at Woodrow Wilson Elementary school. Over 50 percent of the students at Woodrow Wilson are English Language Learners, and the visual art program is providing a foundation for students to build confidence and success.
Since the BTSALP has been implemented, teachers have reported an increase in student attendance on days art class is held. The first year the program was at Woodrow Wilson, the number of students who missed 10 or more days of school dropped 14%. And, despite the barrier language can impose on a child’s learning, teachers feel students are 100 percent engaged in the art class at Woodrow Wilson. Likewise, parent-participation has increased. Teachers were thrilled to see a large increase in the number of parents who participated in Art Night, especially when a surprising number of non-English and refugee parents attended.
Arts specialist Rosemary “Rosie” Mitchell has integrated art into the classroom in many meaningful ways. In fifth grade, students studied the history of printmaking and its connection to colonialism. With this project, students learned the importance of teamwork in collaborative art making by creating letters to contribute to the class alphabet.
Mitchell believes “higher levels of thinking occur when students learn to see the world with the artist’s eye. The level of creative thinking increases in the art room because students aren’t being timed, tested, or graded.” The art from the BTSALP has given Woodrow Wilson Elementary a way to equally serve English and non-English populations in a language everyone can understand.
Belknap Elementary, Beaver
Amanda Riley—Music Specialist
Integrated arts education, like that taught in the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, provides teachers unique and meaningful ways to teach students information in core subjects. Belknap Elementary found that students benefit significantly when they are taught music alongside core subjects like mathematics. As one of about 50 schools chosen to participate in the BTSALP, Belknap has 20 percent more students proficient in mathematics than the average for the state. It’s no surprise that music specialist Amanda Riley has focused on integrating math into her lesson plans.
In Riley’s music class, she took special care to demonstrate mathematical concepts using song elements. Showing students that music and math are interconnected, she used a pie graph to show whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes. Then, students used the musical staff system to document their compositions and arrangements.
While music has helped students understand mathematics, it has provided teachers a unique and effective way to teach social studies and history as well. Songs, narrations, and re-enactments became a key vehicle in driving fifth-grade history instruction at Belknap, not only enabling students a deeper understanding of historical people and events, but providing students a way to creatively overcome behavior problems and communication barriers.
Belknap also has several students whose first language is not English, and the music program allows those students to practice their newly acquired language skills in a uniquely interactive and immersive way. One such student transferred to Belknap from Thailand and did not speak any English at the start of the school year. On his first day, however, his music class was studying folk dancing, and he was able to jump right in and participate even though there was a language barrier. Throughout the year music was used to help him learn English and by the end of the year he proudly sang the National Anthem during a musical presentation on US history.
“Students learn in a variety of ways, and many students fall into the auditory learning realm,” said Brady Fails, principal at Belknap. “Having the music portion of the BTSALP in our school has certainly had a positive impact on the learning of many of our students.”
For Belknap students, integrating music into the core subjects has provided a universal language to learning. “Music levels the playing field with information that is new for all students, and provides a place where creativity can flow without language barriers,” said Riley.
Oakridge Elementary, Holladay
"When students truly engage with the arts as an integral part of their education process, they receive learning that they can’t get in other way—with great values intertwined in the process. The arts bring accelerated learning, imbued with love, respect and other great values that bubble up naturally in the process.”
— Carole Cannon, former Oakridge principal
When Oakridge Elementary began implementing the Art Works for Kids integrated arts teaching model—now known as the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program—in 1996, academic performance in the school moved steadily from good to great. Former principal Carole Cannon, who led the integration of the model into the curriculum, recalls that the number of sixth-grade students who passed the final language arts unit increased from 85 percent to 97 percent the first year that the program was implemented. Driven by the success of the Art Works for Kids approach, Oakridge has become a magnet for students from throughout the Salt Lake Valley.
“With the entire school faculty and parents on board with the program, we have experienced comparable improvements in every subject area,” says Carole, now a school board member. “The arts are a powerful strategy for learning math, science, social studies and language arts.”
Utilizing the Art Works for Kids side-by-side approach, Oakridge gradually implemented the full gamut of art disciplines into its curriculum—from visual art to music and dance. Oakridge teachers collaborate with art specialists to integrate the arts into the entire curriculum. The school’s educational excellence and rigor is reflected in every subject area. Students use visual arts to illustrate books they are reading, reinforcing core messages while encouraging the student to interpret and “own” the content that most resonates with them.
In one social studies class segment focused on China’s Great Wall, students created an art display that included depictions of their own personal “great walls,” creating art and writing expressive essays to accompany their art.
Math students created a tile mosaic, providing a real-world practical project that engaged their artistic imaginations and their practical knowledge in determining the number of tiles needed to cover the area and the financial cost of the tiles.
One year, Oakridge kindergarten students wrote and performed an original opera, with the support of their teacher and their music specialist. “The magic of integrated arts instruction is that it engages the intellect and creativity like nothing else can,” says Carole.
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Monroe Elementary, West Valley City
“It is truly inspiring to see the empowerment, excitement and performance that integrating the Art Works for Kids model into the curriculum has brought to Monroe’s students.”
— Principal Launa Harvey, Monroe Elementary School
Monroe Elementary exemplifies the powerful difference the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program can have on the lives of its students. Beginning with a single visual artist, this inner-city West Valley school has grown into a thriving program with a rich arts offering that includes chorus, Polynesian dance, piano, violin and viola, drawing, water colors, puppeteering, drama and even quilting.
With the helps of the dynamic Art Works for Kids approach, Monroe has been able to enrich the educational experience and dramatically boost the performance of its predominantly at-risk children—approximately 80 percent of Monroe’s 720-740 students receive free or reduced lunches, while about 75 percent of them come from homes at which English is the second language.
Despite these challenges, Monroe students perform near the top of their district in standardized tests—an achievement that Principal Launa Harvey attributes to the school’s exceptional integrated arts program. Monroe’s disadvantaged students placed among the top ten of 78 schools in its district in both mathematics and language arts proficiency two of the past three years, and among the top 15 in the remaining year—including a dramatic jump from 60 percent language arts proficiency in 2003 to 83 percent in 2006, and from 57 percent to 88 percent in math proficiency.
“The presence of the Art Works for Kids model at Monroe benefits our students in all academic areas, building a connection to learning across the curriculum through visual art,” said Launa Harvey, principal of Monroe Elementary. “At the same time, family history and tradition surface through visual art and pave the way for expressing different cultural values and generating a better understanding of individual differences. Connections to our world through observations, discussions and creations of visual art enhance lifelong learning skills as well as our understanding of diversity.”
Dixie Sun Elementary, St. George
"The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program benefits our students not only academically, but also in behavior and motivation. For all students, but especially for those at risk, an integrated arts education is the best—and in many cases the only way—to put a human face on the educational process and fill it with meaning and purpose.”
— Dale Porter, Principal, Dixie Sun Elementary
From the time Dixie Sun Elementary launched its integrated arts learning program in the 2006-2007 school year, learning has increased and discipline problems have declined. Since the inception of the Art Works for Kids model at Dixie Sun, violent and troublesome behavior has decreased significantly. At the same time, the number of students passing the required academic Average Yearly Progress (AYP) has increased by 20 percent.
Principal Dale Porter and Arts Specialist Randi Hunt have partnered with Dixie Sun’s teachers in implementing the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program to create an exceptional learning environment for its students, 80 percent of whom are underprivileged or at-risk. In the process, they have instilled a new sense of school pride, opportunity and possibility.
“We are located in the highest crime area in Washington County, by a wide margin,” says Porter. “When I came here four years ago, there was a lot of contention with gang violence in the middle- and high-school levels and other problems that spread down to the elementary school. We had problems almost on a daily basis, with kids getting out of control, starting fights and exhibiting other violent and troublesome behavior. Morale and academic performance were down. I knew we had to do something.”
One of the most important steps Dixie Sun and its new principal took was to implement the Art Works for Kids teaching model. Randi Hunt, a distinguished arts teacher recently recognized by the Utah Arts Council as the state’s arts teacher of the year, was chosen as the school’s arts specialist. Beginning with vocal training, Hunt established an integrated arts program that includes:
• The “Arts on a Cart” instruction program for each class in the school, which includes vocal, musical instrument and musical notation instruction
• A school-wide choir that performs at the school, as well as at the well-known Tuacahn Center for the Arts, Dixie College, local parades, and other community venues and events
• A percussion and rhythm group
• A group of orchestral musical performers
• A violin instruction program
“More than ever, students at our school feel that school has something to offer them,” says Porter. “It creates confidence, school spirit and a real sense of engagement in the learning process. There is no replacement for quality integrated arts instruction. Students here and throughout Utah truly need the Beverley Taylor Sorenson program."
James Madison Elementary, Ogden
“The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program has become an essential model of curriculum development for future art and classroom teachers. It has also been an excellent educational and civic tool for supporting the families, constituents and especially the students, many of whom are possibly at-risk, at James Madison.”
— Kathleen “K” Stevenson, Professional Development Partner for James Madison Elementary
The Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, using the Art Works for Kids model, has played a transformative role for teachers and their students at James Madison Elementary in Ogden. Throughout the 2008-2009 academic year the program has been a major part of an integrated effort to increase attendance and learning of James Madison students. Progress has been so remarkable that the local school district has launched a study of the school’s programs and leadership to examine what processes might be applied at other schools.
“I have witnessed profound results for both the students and their classroom teachers, as the Art Works for Kids model has brought about increasingly successful measures of academic and student joy in learning,” said Kathleen “K” Stevenson, a professional development partner for James Madison. “Under the leadership of art specialist Brent Rhodes and principal Ross Lunceford, attendance has increased almost exponentially and student morale and performance is at an all-time high.”
Tangible victories at James Madison are plentiful. In 2007-8, a handful of the school’s approximately 700 students received attendance awards for missing two or fewer school days. Spurred largely by successful implementation of the program, this number swelled to more than 150 in 2008-9, prompting the district to send out a specialist to capture insight about how these processes and results can be used district-wide.
Other victories include:
Inspired by his integrated arts instruction, a third grader consistently marked as a “problem student” by his teachers took top honors in a district-wide art contest, and was publicly recognized at school-wide and city-wide ceremonies, gaining rigor and confidence that will transfer to all subject areas.
A sixth grader sought out Mr. Rhodes at the end of the school year to let him know that the reason she had consistently attended school this year was because of his art classes and projects.
The success of the program at James Madison has led to plans to expand and refine the program in 2009-10, including a focus on visual literacy; curriculum refinements for visual learners; creation of a permanent “Legacy” art work for the school by its students; a student handbook/sketchbook that will follow students through all their years at James Madison; and innovative 3D projects.
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