Creative Advantage News
To receive updates on the Roster application opening date, guidelines and scheduled information meetings, please add your name to our mailing list here .
Roster Opens in February for New Arts Partners
The Office of Arts & Culture maintains an Arts Partner Roster of teaching artists and community arts and culture organizations for The Creative Advantage. The roster is a resource for schools seeking partners to meet their education and community goals and the application process opens annually. Teaching artists, community arts organizations and cultural institutions serving students in Seattle may apply to provide both residencies AND professional development opportunities for teachers.  


Arts Education News...
 Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Arts
This month, SPS Visual and Performing Arts facilitated two teacher trainings on the Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Arts.

The first, Making the Invisible, Visible: Music training took place Saturday, Jan. 12th at Meany MS.  Visual & Performing Arts teachers explored methods for teaching students about Latin American music in a culturally responsive way. Participants explored the cultural archetypes of collectivism and individualism, analyzing music for cultural context, and modifying example lessons to address misrepresentation in order to make the lessons more culturally responsive. 

The second, Cultural Appropriation in the Arts training took place Wednesday, Jan. 16th at Garfield HS.
Visual and performing arts teachers built knowledge on the complexity of cultural appropriation and learned ways to question lessons and source material using “ Cultural Appropriation Guiding Questions for Curriculum ” such as, "Is it taking an image, custom, or practice out of context?" "Who is the author/originator?" "Who is benefiting from using this piece of culture?"

The training began with a keynote by Dr. Patty Bode, Professor of Critical Multicultural Education and Curriculum Design at Westfield State University, where she shared “5 Tasks to Interrupt Cultural Appropriation and Empower Multiple Voices." Then teachers went to studio sessions in different arts disciplines to explore non-exploitative lessons and dialogue about their curriculum. These sessions were led by Maria Guillen-Valdonvinos, Visual Art Teaching Artist, James Miles, Executive Director of Arts Corps, and Monica Rojas-Stewart, Assistant Director African, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies, UW. 

 
5 Tasks to Interrupt Cultural Appropriation and Empower Multiple Voices:
In the picture above: Guest culture bearer Monica Rojas-Stewart, Assistant Director of African Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies Programs at the University of Washington, instructs participants on how to play the cajón, a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru. 
In the above picture: Janet Miller (Elementary Visual Art, Hawthorne) in the breakout session for Visual Art teachers at the Cultural Appropriation Professional Development session on January 16th. The session – Knowledge, Culture, Expression – was led by María Guillen-Valdovinos. Janet is responding to the prompt: HOW DO YOU VISUALLY SEE YOURSELF? WHAT EMPOWERS/INSPIRES CULTURAL EXPRESSION? DESCRIBE YOURSELF THRU A GRAPHIC OR IMAGE. Media: pen and ink, watercolor. 

  1. Be explicit. Name with intention.
  2. Engage with the contemporary & the community.
  3. Disrupt assumptions about space and sense of place.
  4. Collaborate with generosity.
  5. Listen to our students.
In a Creative Advantage School...
Rainier Beach High School's First Winter Music Concert
Tuesday, January 15th, Rainier Beach High School held their first Winter music concert. All of the school's music programs, led by Marcus Herron, performed including orchestra, small band ensemble, choir and a piano soloist.
Arts Opportunities for Students
Intro to Radio Journalism Workshop: 2019 summer session
July 1 - August 16, 2019 

At KUOW’s Studios in Seattle’s University District 

In this fun, challenging, and hands-on workshop you’ll learn about journalism, audio recording, audio editing, interviewing, script writing, and speaking on the air. You’ll gain confidence and leadership skills in a supportive environment while collaborating with other participants to make radio stories and podcasts for KUOW on topics you choose. 

RadioActive is a program of KUOW 94.9 Public Radio.
This is a PAID opportunity! This workshop is the entry point to RadioActive’s advanced producer program, a year-round opportunity to collaborate on youth-led radio productions. 

Early Application Deadline March 5th 

Click here for more info and the application. 
Save the Dates for these Arts Career Exploration Events
More to come in the February Creative Advantage Newsletter

  • Try-a-Trade, Thursday, February 28 at Seattle Central  
  • Visual Art Career Day, Saturday, March 16 at Seattle Art Museum 
  • Music Career Day, Friday, April 19 at MoPop & Seattle Center Venues  
Arts Opportunities for Schools
Music Matters Grants
Application Deadline March 31st, 2019

The Music Matters Fund is managed as a partnership between Music Aid Northwest and the Washington Music Educators Association. Awards from this fund are intended to provide supplemental support to public school music programs in Washington, specifically in schools where funding is scarce. Applications must be postmarked or faxed by March 31. For more information and to apply for a grant, please go to: http://www.wmea.org/Content/C228/MusicMattersGrantApplication.pdf
Arts Opportunities for Teachers
Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas 
Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas (CD Forum) would like to invite you and your students to the following Showing Out events in 2019.

Showing Out: The Word! Untied and Untethered     
Black Writers, Poets, Screenwriters, Novelists, Playwrights, Spoken Word Artists and Wordsmiths!      
Matinee Event Date: February 15th, 2019 (Fri) at 11:30am – approx. 1 hr-1.5 hour engagement

Shows are recommended for youth 12 years and older.

CD Forum events encourage discussion and interactions with performers and audiences and we are open to talkbacks and/or brief workshops with students as part of your arts curriculum.  

Admission Fee: $5.00/per student and/or staff as part of school rate. 
Please contact us if you have any concerns or questions about this fee and would like to bring your class to these events. 
Location of Performances: The performances will be at the historic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute at 104 17th Avenue South, Seattle, 98144. 
Plenty of parking and close to streetcar and bus lines (27, 14 plus other bus routes with 4 block walking distance)

Booking and More Information: To book your group today and receive further information about performances, please eamail Merri Ann Osborne or call at (206) 323-4032 

Website: www.cdforum.org
Resources
As you implement your school arts plans, here are a few websites and people you can look to for help:


The Creative Advantage Page on the SPS website
Resources and tools for arts teams, Creative Advantage news and archived newsletters.

The Community Arts Partner Roster is a vetted list of teaching artists and community arts and culture organizations approved to work in Seattle Public Schools through the Creative Advantage.

The Creative Advantage Website & Toolkit houses the school arts plans, tools for planning partnerships, guidelines for contracts and invoices and more.

If you can't find what you need on-line, contact the Creative Advantage staff:
 
Audrey Querns -SPS project manager for Creative Advantage (for questions about arts teams and planning, arts partner logistics like contracts and funding)
 
Tina LaPadula - Seattle Office of Arts & Culture Creative Youth Project Manager and Lara Davis -Arts Education Manager (for questions about the Arts Partner Roster and working with teaching artists and arts organizations) 

Gail Sehlhorst -SPS Visual and Performing Arts Manager (for questions about arts staffing, curriculum and assessment)
 
Kate Baker - SPS Media Arts Skills Center Project Manager