Making 'Arts Matter'.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - A couple of years ago, when Oregon schools were squirming under a seemingly unstoppable budget ax, the notion of a district hiring a consultant to help guide an expansion of the arts would have been unthinkable.

But the Springfield School District is doing just that and more.

Through an initiative dubbed Arts Matter (formerly Arts as a Signature), the district hopes to build on what officials believe is already a strength by ensuring that a rich, varied and integrated arts curriculum is available to students in every building, at every grade level.

That's still a tall order, given continuing tight budgets and the state and federal emphasis on test scores. But with a more generous school funding package than officials expected from the Legislature, the school board decided it was a goal worth pursuing - and putting some dollars behind.

Board member Jonathan Light shared his rationale at a recent weekly meeting of administrators, where they discussed their summer reading assignment from Superintendent Nancy Golden: Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future."

The arts, he said, should be something Springfield "can run up the flagpole" to engage the community, attract new families to the district and keep more students in school.

"I think the arts is a very broad hook that engages a lot of kids," he said.

Many in the district agree the goal is admirable, although some wonder how they'll manage to carve out extra time for it.

"I think the puzzle is, how do you add more to a pretty pronounced curriculum, a pretty full curriculum that's defined heavily by state standards, with more and more unfunded mandates," said Jim Keegan, principal at Mount Vernon Elementary. "My short answer is you get creative teachers and you integrate."

Keegan said he's lucky enough to have several on his team, including music teacher Tama Rowan, in her second year at Mount Vernon.

On a recent day, Rowan led 25 fourth-graders through the "Salutation Samba," helping them keep the rhythm while they tapped conga drums and chanted the word "hello" in different languages.

"I do a lot of multicultural (lessons)," said Rowan, a director with the Oregon Children's Choir and the Rose Children's Theatre.

One of Rowan's strongest skills, though, is her knack for designing lessons and stage productions that tie in with what teachers are doing in the classroom, Keegan said.

Last year, for instance, at the same time fourth-graders were studying the Oregon Trail in class, they were learning American folk songs, dances and historical dialogue from Rowan. The unit culminated in a student performance - a "hoedown" - that drew an audience of 500.

"I just get out of her way," Keegan said. "It's such a great example of extending the arts. It's really going to be hard to add more into an already overloaded curriculum, but there's a really good example of integration."

The district's new focus on the arts emerged over the last three years, Golden said, as the district planned and launched the Academy of Arts and Academics, now in its second year. The small high school, whose startup was funded through a $312,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust, blends traditional academics with professional-level media and theater arts.

Around the same time, several schools embarked on new arts ventures, including Briggs Middle School, which started an arts-focused magnet program called Visual and Dramatic Arts in 2005, and Goshen School, which last year offered studio space to artists eager to work with youngsters.

"Then it was like, now we need to get systemic about it," Golden said. "You let innovation happen, but how do we create something where this can be a district where the arts really flourish throughout? That's where we're really going to be engaging on this year is how do all these pieces fit together."

To that end, the board earmarked $30,000 in the 2007-08 budget to pay for a yet-to-be-hired consultant to help put together an implementation plan.

The district also has drawn on internal expertise, last year convening a work group of arts teachers - including Rowan - to brainstorm ways to better integrate and highlight the arts and give a presentation to the school board.

Golden said continuing input and involvement - not just from arts teachers, but from all employees as well as students and the broader community - will be critical to the initiative's success.

Jonathan Siegle, longtime theater director at Springfield High School, said the district already has the strongest arts program in the area, at least at the high school level.

"Springfield High School is a role model for doing the arts right," said Siegle, noting that the school is launching a new advanced filmmaking program this year.

But doing more, he said, could lead to great things across all levels.

"We need to stop with this idea that art is a separate thing, where the art teacher comes into the classroom week and does art," he said.

He's skeptical whether the district can pull it off, though, without hiring more teachers.

"If this leads to more (teachers) and more arts integration in the curriculum, the answer is yes, it could be a good thing," he said. "But it can't be a PR thing - it's got to be real."