Thursday , March 28 2024

Education Matters: Spark Initiative Bringing Arts to the Classroom

What does this child playing a recorder at McCabe Elementary School in Mendota have in common with students working on an art project at Baldares Elementary in Fresno? How is that all connected to a music program at Westside Elementary School in Five Points?

"In most of these schools, there would not be arts education without Spark," explains FCOE Visual & Performing Arts Consultant Lindsay Callahan. 

Spark is an initiative of the Arts Business Coalition founded by the Fresno County Office of Education. It’s goal is to bring arts education back to the classroom. The reasons go beyond providing students with a well rounded education but also preparing them for the work world.

"What we are finding in our conversations with business leaders is that there was a piece lacking in the students that were coming to work for them and that piece was creativity and what really drives creativity is that exposure to arts education," says Callahan. 

To make sure students are exposed to arts education, business leaders are stepping up and funding needed projects.

"I believe music and the arts are an absolute necessity in the fabric of our lives and our communities," says Kurt Zumwalt, President of Zumwalt Construction. 

Zumwalt is a strong supporter of arts in the schools and he said when FCOE, through it’s Spark program, provided a way for him to get involved in a project at McCabe Elementary in Mendota, he didn’t hesitate.

"I enthusiastically endorsed it and it was this concept of the entire grade having recorders and having this opportunity to play with the philharmonic," said Zumwalt. 

That project, funded by Zumwalt, provided third graders the opportunity to play their first instrument.

<Lesly Rivas/ Student McCabe Elementary:>
"It felt wonderful because I never, like, touched an instrument, until we got our recorders. That was my first time touching an instrument," said McCabe Elementary student Lesly Rivas. 

It provided them with their first opportunity to go to a concert hall and not only listen to the Fresno Philharmonic, but play with them.

The Fresno County Office of Education, through it’s Spark initiative, is also providing many schools with the needed curriculum, teachers and training to make art education work. 

Melissa Wright-Copland, a teacher on special assignment at Baldares Elementary in Fresno, says without Spark, her community-wide art project, celebrating all the educators who had passed through Baldares, would not have happened.

"We had an artist in residence that created arts integrated lessons with social studies and the students had three consecutive lessons and it ended with them making their stone monument," said Copland. 

"When we come back to this school and we see all of the stones, we know that we were here before," said Baldares student Gael Mayorga. 

"It’s changed lives at our school. It’s brought the arts to every single child at our school," Copland said. 

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