JWP approves new art position

This move was made with the advice of Casey Rose, the district’s director of teaching and learning.

The art teacher they are looking to hire for the elementary art position will come from Loyola.

Rose gave a presentation on the standards the school has to meet. According to her, the state legislature, along with the Minnesota Department of Education, follows a schedule to update standards of school subjects like math and science. Last year, they set the standards for art, which includes five areas: music, visual arts, dance, theater, and media arts. All area districts must offer three and meet all the standards in two of the arts areas.

Currently, JWP meets all its standards in music and has a unit in dance in physical education. However, on the elementary side, it does not offer a third area of art and it also doesn’t meet standards in a second area of art, both of which are required by the state.

Rose addressed the question of whether the current elementary teachers could teach art to the standards required by the state. “Technically, they are licensed,” she said.

However, she pointed out that teachers barely have any prep time for other classes. They also only do crafts, which don’t fulfill art standards such as learning the color wheel or using textures to make dimension. “We would have to start from ground zero,” Rose pointed out. “A lot of our staff doesn’t have a background in art.”

The school is already having to implement newer science standards, and the state legislature will be approving new reading and literature standards soon.

“The Minnesota BOLD Literacy Plan is monstrous,” Rose explained. “I had a training on Thursday for an hour through MDE. I also had additional training on it. This is going to be a big one that will require a lot from our staff.”

Rose wants to make things as easy as possible by not asking more of the elementary teachers who already have so little time between teaching subjects.

When asked what other districts were doing, Rose shared that area schools such as Waseca, Cleveland, St. Clair, NRHEG, New Ulm, and Central (Norwood-Young America) have some form of an additional teacher who’s teaching the art standards. NRHEG and Central have STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math) teachers taking on the position while the other schools have a dedicated elementary art teacher.

Having an art elementary teacher will have many benefits. Not only will the school meet state standards, but it will free up time for elementary teachers to prepare for lessons throughout the day.

Another benefit is that the art standards can help elementary students gain the skills that secondary students don’t have right away. “Students can gain skills they can use at the secondary level,” Rose explained. “It’s not something we think of because we have such a fantastic secondary program. But if they came in already knowing line and perspective, the level we could push secondary students automatically increases.”

The school could also expand into STEAM or STEM in the future. “Instead of every other day being art and music, we could have STEAM classes once a week and art and music two days a week,” Rose added. “Those are things that we can loop in with this art position in the future.”

Another benefit of hiring an elementary art teacher is that they could also allow time for media specialist Kimberly Scott to visit high school students and help them out.

“I’ve seen the seventh-graders maybe twice,” Rose said. “Senior High schoolers have maybe been here one percent of the school year.”

That’s because in order for elementary teachers to have prep time, Scott is bringing elementary students in one grade at a time and teaching them, meaning less time to help high school students. Older students also don’t stick around the media center due to the distraction of the elementary students.

Board member Kevin Born questioned the future of high schools using media centers and checking out books. “What’s your opinion on that?” he asked Rose.

“I’m hearing that high school staff wants to bring kids down here,” she replied. “I think it will be a nice change of space for our secondary kids. It can become an area of active learning.”

The extra time will also allow Scott to update the media center’s book catalog, something she can only do when books are damaged. “The average copyright date for nonfiction books here is about 2005, which is a little alarming,” Rose said. “The average for the fiction section is 2009.”

When board member Laura Seys asked if the position could also bring in media arts, Rose said it absolutely would. “The new art teacher will teach graphic design. That will go towards the art credits.”

Adding an elementary art teacher will cost the district an extra $60,000. However, the state gave $40,000 in funding to go toward Scott’s salary as a media specialist. As Rose put it, it’s like they will be paying for one and a third of a teacher’s salary.