LAUSD and the Arts

The Los Angeles Unified School District recognizes that education in the arts make a unique and vital contribution to a child*s cognitive development. Therefore the District is committed to providing all students with opportunities to attain a substantive education in the visual and performing arts at all grade levels, an education that will prepare them to create, collaborate, problem solve, perform, and appreciate works of art.

On July 22, 1999, the Los Angeles Unified School District*s Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution to commence a 10-year effort to establish arts for all students, at all grade levels, in all schools, in all four art forms. To accomplish this goal, LAUSD*s Arts Education Branch began Arts Program Schools (APS) at the elementary level. In the first eight years of the program the number of schools participating has grown from 54 to 392 and it is projected that by 2010 all elementary schools in the District will have the opportunity to participate in the APS project.

In the 2007 - 2008 school year the Arts Education Branch launched a new project at the middle school level to meet the needs of middle and high school arts teachers. The Arts Bridging Teacher Project assigns various visual and performing arts teachers to feeder schools in order to build enrollment and experience in individual art forms .

In addition to the four arts content areas mentioned above, Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Art, the Los Angeles Unified School District, Arts Education Branch (AEB) seeks to establish and support Media Arts as a fifth standards-based Arts Content discipline. Media Arts are an art form comprising of a range of creative and expressive uses of media and communications technologies, including, but not limited to , digital imaging, graphic and web design, video/film production, television, digital music, video gaming, mobile devices and interactive media.

Work has begun on the next 10-year District Arts Education Plan. The second 10-year plan must extend the critical and necessary components of a well-rounded, dynamic and rich arts education and will focus on a K - 12 continuous and articulated curriculum. The Los Angeles Unified School District recognize that the Arts programs benefit students from the entire spectrum of educational programs and demographics, including special education, at-risk, GATE, and English Learners. LAUSD further understands that the Arts, (all five) increase student engagement, empower students' creative voices, and promote active participation in an increasingly networked world.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Jordan New Tech Murals

Devin Murphy a Social Studies teacher incorporated visual art into his Social Studies classes. The students were directed to go out into their community and explore to get a sense of what their community was all about. It was more like a sociology assignment and these were the results.

















At a parent meeting that was held at the Watts Senior Center the community had a chance to respond to three questions about the murals.
  1. What do you see?
  2. How does it make you feel?
  3. What do you think the artist's intent was
Here are more of the murals that came from this project.



To see more of the murals go to: Flickr

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