ART FOR KIDS DANCE, THEATER RETURN TO LAUSD CLASSROOMS.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

For years, arts education in the Los Angeles Unified School District was more like a forgotten art. Years of budget cuts left it almost nonexistent.

But now the district has begun a 10-year plan to revitalize it, creating a new position of director of arts education and increasing the budget from $5 million to $13 million this year.

New director Richard Burrows said his goals include linking more arts organizations with the schools and showing teachers how to bring more art into the classroom.

``Teachers know one thing for sure: The arts have power and impact on the classroom,'' said Burrows, former president of the Institute for Arts Education in San Diego.

``They see what it does for children. It's transformative. It goes beyond creativity. The arts are about seldentification and about identifying yourself in the world.''

Paid $101,093 a year, Burrows will oversee a traveling team of artists in dance, theater and visual arts that visits each of 98 prototype schools for 12 weeks to teach classes and train teachers. Music is already taught at most schools year-round.

School board member Valerie Fields, who pushed for the plan, recalled how in lean budget years, arts were unfairly targeted as a ``frill,'' so arts education varied from school to school.

``But since then there have been data which prove that early exposure to the arts increases youngsters' abilities to learn other core subjects. So that can't be put aside; it can't be considered a frill.''

Under the prototype school effort, the team of traveling artists instruct teachers so they can relay what they learned to colleagues. Much of the arts curriculum is expected to be integrated into other regular lessons.

At Kester Avenue School in Van Nuys, which became a prototype school last year, Principal Sandi Barrett said she has heard only positive feedback from students.

``They love it,'' Barrett said. ``We do the academics, and that's so important here, but we also look at the whole child, and that's where you get the art piece, because our children do bloom in that domain.''

Burrows said increasing involvement of arts organizations in Los Angeles is key.

The Performing Arts Center, for example, has been extensively involved, with 15,300 events countywide last year, including assemblies and sending artists into classrooms.

But Joan Boyett, vice president of the Performing Arts Center's education division, said she and Burrows are working on a state grant application that would provide dance, music and theater performances in every school and send artists to work in the classrooms.

``Not only does he have the big ideas, but he's got the educational grounding to know how to bring those big visionary ideas into the working world.''

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Richard Burrows, the new arts director for the Los Angeles Unified School District, plans to link more arts organizations with the schools and show teachers how to bring more art into the classroom.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer