Arts Academy Revitalization Action Team

Arts Academy Meeting Notes, Nov. 6, 2006

November 6, 2006 at 2:40 pm | In Minutes |

Summary:

Next meeting: Thursday, November 9th @ 1:40 p.m. in the Music room.

Please see below for full notes.

Present:

• Vicky Stubbs
• Phil Divinsky
• Tom Lafavore
• Valerie Green
• Dave Nichols
• Jill Irving
• Lisa Hicks
• Elizabeth Watson
• Jane Krasnow
• Diane Manzi

Full Notes (paraphrased):

Vicky: We need an action for every meeting, to keep track of where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Discussion about increasing collaboration with other community groups–not just performing for them. Example: many in the community would like to use our recording studio and would like to learn to use ProTools. Could we run a class after school? What are the insurance issues? Who would be the group leader? Should be free to any student; for others, ask for a donation or charge them so we can pay the group lader. Can we get clearance to do it? It’s not through Adult Ed…

Tom suggested we try to do it during the Tuesday Learning Community offerings, and charge a lab fee. We would need a staff volunteer to be the official facilitator, and that person would be there with whoever comes in to lead the group from the community.

Vicky also mentioned getting a volunteer social worker–she has tried this in the past, but never gets past the building administration.

Lisa talked about switching her hours from 1-4pm, and/or to open up her program to full-time, with a session from 11 to 1:30 and then a session from 1:30 to 4:00. This is exciting; it would open up the schedule for students who are trying to get in more credits at sending schools (particularly Portland & Deering students). It would compete with Portland Ballet’s after-school program. Some school resources would be missing, such as a guidance counselor and a nurse (though, as someone pointed out, we’ve been without a nurse for so many years that this isn’t a huge issue).

Discussion on CBHS students coming to PATHS: Can we get a comprehensive partnership going with English and Math? If PATHS or CBHS has a guest artist, how much can we share that artist? How much should we collaborate if CBHS is leaving? We wouldn’t want to spend a huge amount of effort, only to find that they really are leaving at the end of the year. Tom: it would be great if PATHS could integrate into CBHS expeditions.

Discussion of grant-writing goals, and what our priorities are:

• smaller grants to support guest artists, etc.
• bigger grant(s) to support Arts Academy transformation

Is it helpful to seek 501c3 status again? Sometimes people will award grants only to 501c3s, but sometimes if a 501c3 organization also receives public funds (as the Arts Academy does), organizations won’t award grants because of the public funds. Vicky will ask Nick Nadzo about this.

We should write a grant to support the "home" idea we’ve been talking about that we will present at PATHSfest. Elizabeth will take this, and other ideas, to the upcoming grant-writing workshop with Sue Steele.

Tom: when doing projects involving community, it’s important to interface with as many people as possible.

Lisa: we could explore "home" in a variety of mediums, with a variety of collaborative efforts.

According to Tom, the Portland Museum of Art has asked us for help creating art criteria around learning results. We should definitely ask them about collaborating. Also, Elizabeth will meet with the SPACE Gallery this Thursday.

Next meeting: Thursday (Wednesday is Dimensions of Learning).

Vicky is away next week Tues-Thurs @ a VISTA training.

TODO: plan for student visioning exercise.