Parent-Led Art In The Schools: Make It Happen!

Michelle Smit, one of the Parent-Teachers at Duniway School in Portland, Oregon, poses in front of the Picasso Lesson she developed

In Defense of the Arts

If your child is in elementary school or above, chances are good that art classes have been reduced or cut out entirely. Why should we care? Americans for the Arts has gathered and summarized outcomes from numerous studies which underline the importance of keeping the arts in our schools. Here is a sampling:

• Sixth grade students who attended schools in which the arts were integrated with classroom curriculum outperformed their peers in reading.
• Schools that made room in their schedules for the arts at the expense of other academic disciplines did not suffer a decline in standardized test scores.
• A co-relationship between high involvement in the arts and better academic scores was found among all students.
• The YouthARTS Development Project, a research initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice, offered arts opportunities to youth at risk in three cities and found decreased delinquent behavior and improved cooperation and attitudes about school. In Portland, while only 43 percent of the program participants demonstrated an ability to cooperate with other at the start of the program—a full 100 percent did so by the end of the 12-week program.

What do you do if your child’s school has dropped the ball? Some parents are taking matters into their own hands.

Christine Claringbold of Eye Pop Art is a parent at Duniway School in Portland, Oregon, where a thriving art program is run by parent volunteers alone! There is no art teacher on staff. The parents plan an art schedule for the year, contribute and raise money to fund the program, develop the lessons, and teach them. Taking in Christine’s photographs of student work and end of term “Art Shows” I am convinced that such a parent-run art program can succeed with flying colors! And, she insists that the art program need not cost an arm and a leg: the Duniway art program runs for 12 weeks each year, and it costs $10 per child.

Watercolor Haiku

Mandala Lesson

Musical Collage

You can read all about Duniway School’s Art Program in this article that Christine wrote for Etsy, and gain practical tips to help you develop a parent-run art program at your child’s school in her follow-up article. The follow-up article will take you through all the steps necessary to build an Art Committee, give you tips on teaching art to a class of kids, as well as offer some creative ideas to use during your Student Art Show.

Sumi-e Lesson, displayed in school windows during the Art Show

The Duniway School gym is transformed into Art Gallery: Notice the careful positioning of the round floor display for the students Mandala work

What if you’re not ready to take on a school-wide art program?

Try talking with your child’s teacher: Ask if you can come in to share one fun, easy art lesson with the class.

If you are passionate about the idea of having a parent-run art program, but you don’t have time to run it, try emailing a group of parents and see if anyone bites. There might be an artistic Mama in your child’s school that would be thrilled to get the ball rolling. You won’t know if you don’t ask!

When it comes time to develop lesson plans, here are a few wonderful resources:

The Duniway School provides free art lesson plans, created specifically for parent-teachers, and is divided by grade level (covers K-5). Most of the artwork featured in this post was made in parent-run art classes at Duniway.

Princeton Online’s Incredible Art Lessons contains hundreds of lesson ideas, organized into Early Childhood, Elementary, Jr. High/Middle School, and High School.

Art Projects For Kids is a blog regularly updated with new projects. Check out the list of tags on the right side of the page to find projects for a specific age group or based on the work of a certain artist.

Use this model to supplement your child’s school with whatever it is lacking

While the Duniway Art Program focuses on the visual arts, perhaps you would like to provide students in your child’s school with music, dance, or drama experience? Or maybe it is the Lab portion of the sciences that have been cut. The bottom line is, if you are upset about it, chances are there are other parents in the school who are upset, too. Connect. Talk to one another. You may be surprised with the allies you find.

All images in this story courtesy Christine Claringbold via Etsy

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1. Knock, Knock, It’s Lori From Camp Creek!
2. Hunting For A Preschool?
3. Hunting For A Preschool, Part 1: Montessori
4. Hunting For A Preschool, Part 4: Charlotte Mason, A Homeschooling Approach
5. Hunting For A Preschool, Part 2: Waldorf