Arts Academy Revitalization Action Team

Arts Academy Meeting Notes, December 5, 2007

December 5, 2007 at 3:44 pm | In Minutes |

Summary:

We spent the meeting working on our vision statement, working with our “what does a graduating student look like” list and with the vision statement from the Boston Arts Academy. We came up with 2 general statements about our intentions (subject to change…) and then started talking about specifics.

Big statements:

• By 2010, The Arts Academy at PATHS will be a recognized leader and advocate for the arts and their integration with academics.
• By 2015, our state-of-the-art facility will serve our students and the community at large.

Big question: Can we send students to Casco Bay for core subjects?

Agenda for our next meeting, on December 12, 2007:

1. PATHSFest planning: 25 minutes
2. Vision work: 25 minutes
3. Parking lot: 5 minutes
4. Agenda: 5 minutes

Present:

• Vicky Stubbs
• Phil Divinsky
• Diane Manzi
• Jessica Nadeau
• Val Green
• Dave Nichols
• Jane Krasnow
• Dave Beane
• Lisa Hicks

We spent a little time discussing what kind of a vision statement we want to have: short or long? Use our “graduating student” list to flesh out our vision? Or should the “graduating student” list be incorporated into the vision statement?

Vicky: the vision statement isn’t necessarily succinct–should be a detailed statement of what we’re doing. We need to be clear about what we’re doing, and it may need to be a little bit lengthy. It’s describing us, it’s our “advertisement”. There’s a lot to describe. Maybe we have a vision statement with 3 big headings and then subheadings.

Phil: Boston Arts Academy has a short statement about what the academy will be, and then a long description afterwards. So maybe we can have a shorter vision statement about what we’re going to be, and then go on to describe the details.

Different angles: ideas about educational content, and ideas about the facility. We talked about the building a lot last year and 2 years ago, but our educational goals are changing and that may ultimately affect the kind of building we need.

We came up with 2 general statements:

• By 2010, The Arts Academy at PATHS will be a recognized leader and advocate for the arts and their integration with academics.
• By 2015, our state-of-the-art facility will serve our students and the community at large.

What about something about the diversity of the student body, and teaching all aspects of the performing and visual arts? Also: interdisciplinary. What does interdisciplinary mean to us exactly?

Maybe a step by step: start with diverse students, use interdisciplinary method, here’s what a student looks like afterwards.

“Interdisciplinary”: students can choose across curricula, streamlining our curricula to combine/share units of study, and teaching core (English, Math, History, etc…) through the arts. These are 3 different things.

We want to make sure that our core subjects are relevant (we’re not just making History more “palatable”). We should be clear that we’re not teaching something “softer”, and we can’t, because we’re subject to the Maine Learning Results. We want to offer the same level of academics as Deering or Portland.

2010 and 2015 may be pushing it for dates.

What about CBHS? Do we combine and become comprehensive? From a planning perspective, why would the administration not want to combine us? In our case, vocational funding (from 23 sending school districts) is much different than funding CBHS. Also, CBHS got money from the Gates Foundation, which supports small schools (under 400 students).

We would be a magnet school. We want to draw in all kinds of students, which means our academics will be scrutinized.

We then had a discussion about different kinds of students and what that would look like for educating them in core subjects, and realized that huge questions start to happen when we talk about being “comprehensive”. Maybe we can stick with who we are and how we’re working in this school. We could leave out the “all day” aspect until later. But we want it, because we think it’s an important part of our vision! Let’s try to spell out what we can, and look for answers about the comprehensive part.

Can we send kids to CBHS for core subjects? Let’s find out.

PATHSFest: didn’t get to discussing it today. Dave N. will announce the tentative PATHSFest date at the next faculty meeting.

Agenda for next time:

1. PATHSFest planning: 25 minutes
2. Vision work: 25 minutes
3. Parking lot: 5 minutes
4. Agenda: 5 minutes