The History of Arts in Education Aid Council
Arts in Education Aid Council, Inc. started back in 1999 by three moms (Spike Dolomite Ward, Arden Teresa Lewis, and Anita Lee) new to the LAUSD, in response to the lack of arts education in their children’s schools. As artists themselves, they understood how critical it was that some sort of outside solution be developed to the arts education crisis in San Fernando Valley public schools. So they set about starting a nonprofit organization, completely separate from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The pilot school was Vanalden. Spike Dolomite Ward, founder, had a son in kindergarten. As a private art teacher for young children, she volunteered her time and resources to teach art in her son’s class. She started volunteering more, teaching, painting murals, and arranging for cultural field trips, all the while developing Arts in Education Aid Council, Inc., as a viable public charity. New to district politics, the school PTA, and the Vanalden School Site Council, she rapidly learned how to navigate the program, while preserving its autonomy and integrity as an outside entity. The sole purpose of the organization is to serve Valley public schools by providing immediate arts education services to schools at no cost to them or school families. Another school was adopted four years later, Melvin Elementary, also in Reseda. AEAC implemented the full model developed at Vanalden. Then in 2007 a third school was adopted, the newly built Maurice Sendak School in North Hollywood.
The organization has grown over ten times its original size, providing comprehensive arts education programming in three Title I elementary schools, and providing more limited assistance to another 50 elementary, middle and high schools.
The curriculum is written according to the California State Board of Education’s Visual Arts Standards. Every student in grades 1-5 goes on at least one cultural field trip per year. The entire school receives semi-monthly dramatic and musical assemblies. All third graders learn how to read and play music on recorders. Fourth and fifth graders have the option to play in the school violin orchestra. Families participate in weekend art events such as trips to the Getty and LACMA, sketch hikes to nearby state parks, and Family Art Day on campus. At least one school mural is painted every year. After school, there are arts programs such as Art Club, art intervention and theatre.
Besides the comprehensive arts education services provided to three elementary schools, we also serve the entire San Fernando Valley with an Annual Valley Wide Student Art Show every year in March. Every public school in the San Fernando Valley is invited to participate. The show grew so much that it had to be separated into three parts; a teen exhibit and reception, an elementary exhibit and reception, and a performing arts showcase. Over 600 students from throughout the Valley participated in last year’s show. The purpose of this annual event is to celebrate Youth Art Month, draw attention to the need for arts education programs in schools, and give the creative kids (who normally slip through the cracks of the current educational system) a chance to be publicly seen, heard, and acknowledged. Our quarterly newspaper, Valley Arts, is published (circ. 5,000) to keep the Valley community informed about what is happening locally regarding the arts, public education, and arts education. We also publish an arts education resource directory and update our website regularly so the community can stay current on the news, activities and opportunities that are available to schools, children, and families. At least once a year, we host some sort of public information meeting focused on a topic relative to arts education. Some of the public gatherings that we have hosted have been screenings of documentaries such as "First to Worst" (the consequences on education and the arts in California due to the passing of Proposition 13), "A Touch of Greatness" (a tribute to the late Albert Cullum, an elementary school teacher who taught core subjects through theatre in the 1960s), "Class Act", (a documentary about the most recent reports on the status of the arts in American schools), and a taped CSPAN presentation of a speech Sir Ken Robinson gave to the Governors Annual Meeting in 2006 about the importance of creativity and the arts in education. In September 2007, we hosted an Arts Education Town Hall at the Madrid Theatre. Over 150 arts education activists attended from throughout the Los Angeles area. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered the opening remarks and a panel of 5 arts education leaders answered questions from the audience. For middle and high schools, we sponsor a “shopping day” for art teachers, inviting them to shop for art supplies, for free, once a year. We also produce a special exhibition for public school art teachers to give the public a chance to see the art that has been made by the talented individuals who are teaching our kids. In November 2007,we partnered with the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in sponsoring a "Career Day" for 75 students from Cleveland High School. A panel of six professional artists talked about their careers and their educations. Afterwards they got a tour of the college. In addition to these services, we also sponsor many different other programs for middle and high schools, such as AP Critique Day where students from three different high schools spend the day together critiquing one another's portfolios in preparation for applying to art schools. We hire a local artist to speak to the students about their careers. We are giving more and more support to Portola and Sutter middle schools (two schools that receive fifth graders from Melvin and Vanalden), to stay with our students who have been participating in our programs since kindergarten. We make supply donations, sponsor field trips, and donate musical instruments. Last year we partnered with Sutter Middle School in hosting a Battle of the Bands and the Portola Middle School Orchestra will partner with the Los Angeles Philharmonic through one of their outreach programs that we are paying for.
All of these services are provided free of charge. Arts in Education Aid Council, Inc. does all of its own fundraising and is completely separate from LAUSD bureaucracy. The council partners with individual schools by invitation of the school principals, and through the cooperation and support of the school staff. Their only goal is to provide arts education services to as many children as possible, as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
