VENTURA : State Mandate Gets Arts Into Classroom

At Saticoy Elementary School, teachers take attendance to the strains of Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” and at Buena High, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony wafts across the quad as students hang out after lunch.

In a social studies class at Cabrillo Middle School, students are studying Rembrandt while down the hall a world history class is writing poetry.

The schools in the Ventura Unified School District are following a state mandate to incorporate the arts into students’ education, said JoAnn VanderMolen, director of curriculum and instruction.

“The fine arts have come into focus, and the district has made a real commitment to seeing them implemented. With that push from the state, we felt this was the year to go for it,” she said.

Victoria Sepulveda, art department head at Buena High, said she sees an increase in understanding of the importance of the arts in the curriculum. “The public at large tends to think of an art class as goof-off time. When they realize I mean business and they begin to realize their potential to create, however, students’ attitudes change.”

Kay Dann, head of performing arts at Ventura High, said the arts teach critical thinking, writing skills, higher-level organization and analysis. “They are not a frill, but are important historically and culturally.”

For the first time, the University of California and Cal State are requiring applicants to have 10 units of fine arts.

Judith Bysshe, assistant principal at Buena High, said the schools are having to provide more arts opportunities as the universities raise their requirements.

“Some people learn best through their senses and part of the function of the arts is to teach us to use our senses. It’s just another teaching tool, really,” Bysshe said.

An example, VanderMolen said, would be students in a science class graphing a weather chart, or math students creating designs with wooden blocks as they learn abstract concepts. Also, new texts illustrate literature and history with fine art prints.

This way of teaching has been adopted in Australia and Canada, as well as parts of Europe, but California is the first to put it into practice in the United States, VanderMolen said.

Richard Welcher, district business services superintendent, said each school decides what proportion of its state money goes to each program.

Last year, the district spent $631,000, 1% of its general fund, for arts education at the middle and high school levels. That equals $70.75 per student in the four middle schools and $106.50 per student at both high schools. The money was spent on salaries and supplies.

The 17 elementary schools spent $10.21 for each pupil last year to ensure that these students received a state-mandated 100 minutes per week of arts instruction, said Michael Sellwood, director of administrative services.

Art programs in the district include “Artist of the Month,” a three-year art appreciation course that introduces visual artists. In the “Mozart in the Morning” program, students hear 10- to 15-minute musical segments by one of 60 composers.

“Artist in the Classroom” is an artist-in-residence program that offers teachers a choice of 12 artists who visit the classroom once a week for eight weeks.

The artists include a songwriter, a printmaker, a potter and a poet.