Does your public elementary school have a music and art program? Can you describe? - Page 2

[CallMeMommy]

Ours still has both. My kindergartner rotates PE, art, and music every week. I'm pretty sure the upper grades (5 and 6) have a formal elective band class with instruments and all that. We're also a Title I school but I think all of the elementaries in the district are the same way.

Oh, forgot to describe - all 3 classes have their own full-time teachers. For music they had the kids learn a bunch of cutesy songs (some with simple choreography) for a concert a few weeks ago. He's always singing songs around the house. For art he's always bringing home paintings and whatnot. I think the art classes did the decorations for the spring concert, too.

[annethcz]

My kids go to a tiny charter school (about 80 kids in preK through 6th grade). They do not have a specialized art or music teacher. However, they do have an art and music class once/week, which is taught by their regular classroom teacher.

[Girlprof]

DS goes to a regular public elementary school with about 60-80 kids/grade. They have music and art once a week. What is different from way back a zillion years ago when I was in school is the quality of this instruction. It is much, much higher. We had reasonable music and totally acceptable art instruction, but these kids are really learning tons, and tons of different things about these subjects. It's fantastic.

[Emmeline II]

We have a dedicated teacher for each and two gym teachers. I think our school holds 600 students.

[Laurel]

Wow, where do you all live? I'm so jealous!

Ours is a medium-sized public elementary school. There are NO music, art, or PE specialists in the district at the elementary level. NONE. All of these are carried out by the classroom teacher, and my experience has been that virtually nothing gets done. In kindergarten and first grade, my ds did basically no art whatsoever. A few cutting/pasting/coloring projects in 1st grade, and maybe 2-3 in kindergarten. He does more "art" now in second grade. The teacher has them making something every week or two, but it's all cutting and coloring pre-printed stuff. Nothing original. It's not really art, to me.

In kindergarten, all the music they did consisted of learning corny songs to sing at their graduation program. I know they've learned a few songs here and there in 1st and 2nd grades, but that's it. Our school does bus 5th and 6th graders to a district-wide orchestra program. I'd guess the district has something similar for band, but I honestly haven't heard a thing about it. Our school used to have a choir for upper grades, but right now they have nothing. They do have a small acting/singing group that does occasional shows for the school, but this is not a permanent thing, it's on an as-needed basis.

This is a major reason why we're homeschooling next year.

[Proxi]

The school I work at has a full-time music teacher, and then the homeroom teacher teaches art.

[prairiebird]

Originally Posted by Laurel

Wow, where do you all live? I'm so jealous!

ditto! But I think our district has it a bit better than yours- they get music once a week for 8 weeks out of the year. It's pretty much learning to sing to a piano and then singing it for parents one night at the end of eight weeks.

There is an afterschool band option once they hit 6th grade that meets at the high school. I have no idea what the high school offers.

There are no other art/theater/etc type classes available.

[Linda on the move]

And in middle school all the kids have art for one quarter. It's every day for that quarter and they do really interesting projects. They also have music every day for one quarter -- 6th graders spent the whole time learning about jazz.

Band and choir are electives. In middle school drama is an afterschool activity.

[mommy2maya]

oh and as for theater, our school district is HuGELY into this. Not as great as maybe big city districts with specialized high schools just for performing arts, but we have a great program, including a summer stage program that is hugely followed.

http://www.udpac.org/

Children can begin participating in PAC after they finish 5th grade, but the foundation is DEFINITELY set in early elementary school!

[mammastar2]

It really varies by school here.

Dd has been at 2 other schools that did not have arts specialists, but her neighborhood school that she attends now has an excellent music teacher, with music class once in every 5 day rotation. They do choral music, and an Orff program in music class. There are also extracurricular choirs and a drum club. Art and dance or drama are done 1x/week with the classroom teacher.

[ecoteat]

I teach in a tiny rural school (60 kids K-8). The kids have art 2x a week and music 2x a week. For a chunk of the year the 4th/5th class gets an extra art class a week when they walk to the local pottery co-op to do pottery. The middle school kids get a third music class each week to practice jazz band. Up until last year, we also had a performing arts teacher. For a while that was a once a week kind of class, but that didn't work very well so then the performing arts teacher would work intensively with one class at a time for a while. Last time my kids did something with her it was this fabulous poetry night. That has been cut--not so much because it wasn't valued (it actually kind of got rolled into the new music teacher's position) but because of a personality conflict.

My school values the arts very much. We would never cut any of our program unless it was a dire emergency. Our new music teacher is completely amazing. Last fall, most of my middle school kids had never played an instrument. A month ago they won fourth place in the state jazz band competition. The music teacher we had a few years ago won a Grammy and had to take a week off of teaching to go accept his award!