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1. Portraits from 2011 Spring Arts Show AND Ceramics by Stoddert students, 2011

2. Presentation Outline • The PAST • The PRESENT • Who • How • What • Why • The FUTURE Band practice at Garrison, 2011

3. The PAST A brief history lesson: • In the 1970s, an engaged and active group of DCPS parents saw a dilution of arts instruction due to small school sizes and the inability to justify dedicated arts teachers. • Fearing a wholesale loss of arts instruction for their children, they decided to THINK DIFFERENTLY! • Therefore, they pooled their individual schools’ resources to develop one specialized center for arts teaching that children from all the participating schools could benefit from. • This aggregation of funds allowed for more robust, multi-disciplinary instruction than could happen if each school went it alone! • Hence, Fillmore Arts Center was born! “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Faulkner

4. The PRESENT What You Get for Your Arts Budget at Fillmore: • Multiple teachers who are practicing artists and specialists in their particular discipline: dance, music, ceramics, painting, drawing, digital arts, drama, and creative writing. • Facilities designed for use as art spaces: dance floors, kilns, a black box theatre, digital arts lab, and more. • Opportunities for your children to perform publicly and display their work around the city • Exposure to and instruction from visiting artists • Access to arts enrichment experiences and field trips • Planning time allocated to regular classroom teachers while their students attend arts classes “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.” Emerson

5. The (alternative) PRESENT What You Could Get For Your Arts Budget at Your Participating School: • One part-time Art teacher and one part-time Music teacher • Limited supplies and no dedicated space “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.” Emerson Spring Dance Performance, 2011

6. The WHO • The Players • Fillmore Arts Center • Friends of Fillmore • Your Home School • DCPS “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare Shakespeare Performance by Key & Hyde students, 2011

7. Fillmore Arts Center Not your average DC public school: • Founded in 1974 • Has two locations, Fillmore East and Fillmore West, which serve over 3,000 students per year • Provides dedicated arts instruction centers with specialized teachers and facilities • Teaches a range of arts: dance, drama, music, visual and digital arts • Has won multiple awards over the years and is considered a nationally recognized innovator in arts education • Hosts artists-in-residence, who share their knowledge and techniques in the arts with our children • Acts as a community cultural anchor through after-school and summer camp programs, individual instruction in musical instruments, and community performances and events “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare

8. Friends of Fillmore (FOF) • FOF is a non-profit organization that functions like Fillmore’s PTA • The group hopes to streamline communications and build a cohesive “look and feel” for Fillmore notices and updates this year • Throughout the school year, FOF works to raise money to support the activities of Fillmore Arts Center • FOF fundraising dollars and contributions go to pay for: • ALL art supplies used throughout the school year and instruments for the classrooms • Artist-in-Residence grants • After-school enrichment programs and summer camp scholarships • FOF organizes hospitality for Fillmore’s “Be an Artist” night, open houses, and performance events • For information on the Friends of Fillmore go to www.friendsoffillmore.org “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare

9. Friends of Fillmore (FOF) Your support makes everything possible, so get involved! • STAY IN TOUCH: go to the Friends website and add your email to our mailing list • JOIN the Friends of Fillmore board and use your time and talent for a great cause (We look to have at least 2 reps from each school every year!) • PROMOTE Fillmore’s activities within your school and amongst your wider community • ATTEND Fillmore events • DONATE funds to the Friends of Fillmore • VOLUNTEER in the Fillmore Arts Center office or classrooms • ADVOCATE for Fillmore • FIND a community sponsor to host an activity that supports Fillmore (dining nights or something else?) • CHANGE to wind power and that provides a $25 donation to FOF (visit www.cleancurrents.com to sign up) “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Shakespeare

10. The HOW “Bit by bit… putting it together” Sondheim • Serves as a shared resource for participating schools, providing multi-disciplinary arts education on campus at the participating school or on-site at Fillmore • Provides busing so children and teachers can move between campuses • Provides space, maintenance, and some additional salaries THE RESULT: Because DCPS provides busing and additional funding and FOF provides art supplies and additional financial support, the Fillmore program provides more than double the arts education resources that a Participating School could fund by itself!! • Provides school reps to attend the Friends of Fillmore Meetings • Contributes a per student fee (part of its arts budget) to the Fillmore program • Serves as Fillmore’s “PTA” • Conducts fundraising on behalf of Fillmore Arts Center • Raised funds provide art supplies and instruments, enrichment content like artists in residence and field trips, and after-school & summer camp scholarships

11. The WHAT “Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” Plato DO YOU HOPE FOR YOUR CHILDREN TO BE… • Civic-minded people who engage in their local communities? • Creative problem-solvers who employ critical thinking skills to generate multiple solutions? • Flexible thinkers who can work across disciplines, appreciate diversity, and thrive in cooperative, collaborative settings? • High-achieving and actively involved students who work responsibly and have confidence and self-esteem? • Expressive communicators who read and write more AND more skillfully? • Strong observers who can visualize abstract concepts? • Empathetic, considerate people who value others and themselves and can tolerate divergent viewpoints? • Creators of beauty and joy who have less stress and are more physically coordinated? Then, have them learn and participate in the arts!

12. The WHY THE RESEARCH IS IN… • Find details on all these claims in this report: Critical Evidence: How the Arts Benefit Student Achievement (2006) published by the Arts Education Partnership • You can find a link to the report on the FOF site at www.friendsoffillmore.org/documents/ EXAMPLES FROM THE STUDIES • …children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen. • As a “warm-up” writing exercise, second and third grade students used poetry, games, movement and improvisation to act out their story ideas, which contributed to their improved performance. • [teens in] dance classes twice weekly for 10 weeks, … reported significant gains in confidence, tolerance and persistence related to the dance experience. • An analysis conducted of multiple studies confirms the finding that students who take music classes in high school are more likely to score higher on standardized mathematics tests such as the SAT. “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” John Dewey

13. “The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.” Lincoln The FUTURE • Sense-making • Design Mindset • Novel & Adaptive Thinking • Social Intelligence • Virtual Collaboration • Sound like things you get from working with the arts? From Report by The Institute for the Future (IFTF), Summer 2011

14. CONTACTS • Contact Fillmore’s Principal, Katherine Latterner if you: • want to address child-specific or classroom-specific Fillmore issues; even better, contact your child’s FILLMORE teacher(s) directly • Email: katherine.latterner@dc.gov • Phone: 202-729-3795 (direct); 202-729-3794 (office) • Contact your FOF School Rep who serves on the FOF Board, if you want to share ideas or concerns related to your home school. • Contact FOF Board Chair, Kelly Richmond, if you want to join the FOF Board or have suggestions for how we can improve. • Email: FACBoardChair@gmail.com