San Diego Unified School District and the Visual and Performing Arts Foundation are planning to bring social and emotional arts learning to schools that have more limited arts programs. The initiative, funded by a $1 million grant called the Prebys Sparx Award, will allow them to train teachers in e xpressive arts. It gives teaching artists support in understanding how art can be used for students’ personal growth, social connection and classroom engagement. “The expressive arts philosophy is really interesting because it cuts into students’ imaginations and senses, so they can really explore things that are aligned with social-emotional learning,” said Katelyn Woodside, the foundation’s executive director. “They can explore how to connect with their peers, and they can explore their own self-identity, and they can explore their creativity.” She said her organization has arts offerings and will work with alternative sites that specialize in students with mental health challenges and home hospital students. Russ Sperling, the district’s visual and performing arts director, said the district shares all its arts program data with the VAPA Foundation. “So they can zero in on schools … where these programs will have the most impact,” he said. The 60-hour certificated program provides training in trauma-informed instruction for social and emotional learning experiences in the classroom. With it, the foundation, in collaboration with the Expressive Arts Institute, plans to bring arts instruction to 25 schools in the district, and to more than 4,700 students. Sperling said the goal is 135 classrooms next school year. The foundation is working with 14 community partners to put 50 teaching artists and the community partners through the training program, spanning areas like theater, dance, visual art, writing, puppetry and storytelling. Woodside said the data shared from the district allows the program to track the quantifiable benefits of arts education — but her organization also sees the unquantifiable ways that students grow and thrive. Expressive arts programming helps build friendship and strengthens classroom culture, she said — making students more likely to come to school and engage, which can help improve their grades and their sense of school community. To Sperling, it’s more “authentic” for students is social-emotional learning is taught as a part of art, rather than another subject. He said the district sees better attendance with arts programming, plus a link between academic and general well-being. “That’s what’s exciting,” he said. Sperling sees the program as a supplement to the additional arts funding the district has gained access to with Proposition 28, the measure voters passed in 2022 to provide supplemental funding for arts education. He thinks Prop. 28 has been properly handled by the district and will help give students a better foundational arts education — but the funding is limited, and much of it is being spent on supplies and equipment. “It is not the silver bullet,” he said. “It is not, in my mind, the thing that is going to solve the problem.” And Woodside said if after Prop. 28 took effect schools saw a dropoff in their work with teaching artists through community programs, the VAPA Foundation can keep bringing such experiences and partners into schools. Artists in such programs often do eight- to 10-week residencies of weekly deep dives into art in schools. “Prop. 28 is good,” she said. “But it doesn’t provide what the community can provide.” ...read more read less