Arts Academy Revitalization Action Team

Arts Academy Meeting Notes, Sept. 18, 2006

September 18, 2006 at 1:40 pm | In Minutes |

Summary:

Meetings are now Mondays and Thursdays at 1:40 in the Music room, until the visioning work is done. Next meeting: Thursday, September 21st.

Immediate goals for Elizabeth:

• build up a parent volunteer base for Music and Dance programs
• get volunteers for PATHSFest — let’s make it a big deal this year
  • Visiting dance troupes or local bands to work with students?
  • Fundraising/bake sales/craft fair?
• explore academy models and report to the group to help with the visioning process.

Discussions:

• "Art + vocation" academy model: we have the opportunity to create an exciting experience for students, and we need to make sure that "performing arts" and "allied arts" have equal billing. We need to discuss exactly what that will look like, how the pieces will fit together, and how we will talk about it and sell it to others. We’ll work on crafting a clear, consistent message that we can all use when we talk about the work we’re doing (whether for fundraising or for other purposes).
• Funding questions: how much do we have to look like a "fine arts" academy? Does that matter? We would like to hear more details from David Ruff.

Present:

• Vicky Stubbs
• Elizabeth Watson
• Jill Irving
• Jane Krasnow
• Dave Beane
• Valerie Green
• Phil Divinsky
• Lisa Hicks

Full Notes (paraphrased):

The meeting began with Vicky expressing her feelings of frustration that Elizabeth has been here for 4 weeks and she has only been able to do logistical setup tasks. Vicky has to report to Augusta on Elizabeth’s progress and is frustrated at the slow progress.

Vicky:

• Where are we really going? We need clear goals so I can give Elizabeth tasks.
• we have a lot of ideas, but they need to become concrete tasks
• it’s hard to get organized when I’m teaching and spending most of my time thinking about curriculum
• how do we clarify our vision?

Elizabeth: I need specifics so I can have a clear message when I’m asking for volunteers or donors. Otherwise I don’t know what I’m asking volunteers or funders for. Even monetary goals are undefined, as well as what the money would be used for.

Vicky opened discussion on where we should be going this year. Should we spend a year getting back what she and Lisa used to have in place for the Music and Dance programs? Or should we start going in the direction of something larger?

Phil noted that we’re still in the "messy work" stage of figuring out the details of the bigger picture. We’re not yet ready for Elizabeth to take on specific tasks in the "new bigger goals" area. However, we are ready to rebuild the existing Music and Dance programs, so Elizabeth could work on that and then later we can use her experience to help expand other programs.

After a short discussion, the group reached consensus that Elizabeth would start the work of rebuilding the Music and Dance programs (getting together a list of parents who could volunteer), and also doing some research for us on other academy models and reporting back to us, to help us as we develop our own model.

Jill: Can we start with parents and get them to help us make PATHSFest a really big event?

The group liked this idea–parents could help with fundraising, organizing, advertising, etc. Planning a successful PATHSFest is a year-long project and is something very tangible and well-defined.

Also, Casco Bay HS is talking about hosting a craft fair at PATHS. This might be an opportunity to get parents involved.

Phil: could dance troupes or local bands come to PATHSFest and work with students for a week before, then perform, etc.? Parents have connections that could help us here.

The group discussed the short-term goals for Elizabeth. This week she’ll focus on getting the volunteer group (parents or others) built up for Music and Dance. If other programs are interested in volunteer groups, they should give contact names to Elizabeth.

We then spent some time discussing our larger goal of an Arts Academy. Vicky wondered whether we were just lumping together the classes we have (fashion, computer, video, etc.) with music and dance just because they were here. Are we going to be a "fine arts" academy or an "art + vocation" academy? Lisa wondered why we have to concentrate on voc/tech, when most students who go on in music and dance go to 4-year colleges after PATHS.

There was general agreement that we like combining art with vocational, but we need to be clear that we’re different than a fine arts academy when we’re talking to potential funding sources, volunteers, etc. What is our "mold"? There aren’t a lot of examples of that kind of education out there, which is exciting for us–but also means that we need to think about it carefully and do it right.

Phil: our selling point is that we want to reach kids. All kids won’t be artists, but we expose them to more choices. We’re more diverse than just a fine arts academy.

A short discussion ensued about "fine arts" (or "performing arts") vs. "allied arts" and how to make them sound equal (not just the "allied arts" supporting the "performing arts"). This is really important work and Elizabeth can help us to craft our message. We need "60-second commercials" to be able to talk about our vision, and all of us should be able to use the same statements about our work so our discussion of the arts academy mission is consistent whenever we talk about it.

Lisa: can we talk about the final products of each of our classes, so we can have a common language?

Phil: next week, let’s revisit short- and long-term goals and design down from the long-term goals to give Elizabeth some short-term tasks. It would be good to get through this as quickly as we can, so could we meet on Mondays and Thursdays until we get the visioning piece done?

Agreement on Monday and Thursday meetings @ 1:40 in Vicky’s room.

We discussed wanting to hear from David Ruff (Southern Maine Partnership) and what the details are about funding. He could fund something like the Boston Arts Academy (which is a fine arts academy model). Does that rule out our arts + vocation model for funding?

Phil: do we want to envision a model we want and then adjust if necessary to get funding? Or create a vision that we think would get funded?

We need more info on funding. I think the general feeling was that we should envision our academy first and then tweak it.