Sunday, April 11, 1999
Arts Links looms larger in classrooms
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Art Links has a full calendar of new projects for the 1999-2000 school year:
• A five-year learning-through-art pilot program at Bramble Developmental Academy in Madisonville.
• ArtAbility will work with Drake Center to bring arts to physically handicapped children.
• Yo! Art! will target ninth-graders and use arts and artists to attempt to decrease the dropout rate.
It's a giant step for the 4-year-old organization that started when artists and educators, led by Playhouse in the Park's Ed Stern, saw a need and the potential to connect thousands of under-served students to arts education.
A handful of professional arts organizations were in a dozen arts-needy schools by fall 1996, absorbing all costs themselves. This fall, 24 arts organizations will work in more than 40 schools through Adopt-a-School, now a part of Art Links, still at no cost to schools or students.
Starting in September at Bramble, arts will be used in every classroom to help teach all subjects, from science to math to social studies.
The idea began taking shape last fall when Art Links introduced itself to new Cincinnati Public School superintendent Steven Adamowski.
“He said he wanted to see a model,” says Art Links executive director Linda Tresvant, “so we made one.”
Starting this fall, six arts organizations (Cincinnati Arts Association, Cincinnati Ballet, Drums for Peace, Playhouse in the Park, Sandstone Sculpting and Taft Museum) will put artists in kindergarten through second grade classrooms almost daily.
By the end of five years, the oldest students will have experienced cross-curricular learning from second through sixth grade. Students will be tested and the program will be evaluated.
“Initiatives like this fit in well because they work with school communities to forge new partnerships to meet the challenge of improving academic achievement and because they commit to solid research to track progress,” Mr. Adamowski says.
The cost is projected at $18,000 a year, funded by Art Links.
Drake workshops
ArtAbility will team Art Links with Drake Center to bring arts to children with disabilities for a series of 25 workshops over 18 months beginning in June.
Artists will be trained in interactive programming with special children. Some arts educators, like Taft Museum's Abby Schwarz, already have been trained. Cincinnati Ballet is sending dancer/educator Tami Alesson to New York for a four-week program this summer.
Drake Center will work with health care providers and community agencies. Art Bus, another program of Art Links, will transport children. The expected cost is $15,000 through December 2000.
Taft High program
Yo! Art! is in the planning stages for Taft High School with a projected start date of September. Its target is ninth-graders.
“Taft has the highest dropout rate in the city,” Mrs. Tresvant says. “We want to get those kids involved in an art form, take those kids and bring them to art.”
Artists will serve as mentors, and along with bi-weekly programs at school, students will be encouraged to volunteer with an arts group after school.
While no artists have been booked for Yo! Art!, an example of what mgiht happen, says Ms. Tresvant, would be Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival going into schools for workshops and students coming to the festival's downtown theater after school to work behind the scenes.
Ms. Tresvant estimates that Art Links projects will add up to almost 3,000 artist hours in 1999-2000 and reach more than 25,000 area students. The budget will be $215,000.
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