Escondido CA— The California Arts Council announced it plans to award $9,000 to the California Center for the Arts, Escondido’s My Story: Literacy Through the Arts program as part of its Artists in Schools program.
The Artists in Schools program supports projects that integrate community arts resources—artists and professional art organizations—into comprehensive, standards-based arts learning projects for California’s students.
The Center launched the My Story program in 2006 to confront the challenges of low academic achievement and the lack of art teachers in Escondido’s elementary schools. In addition, My Story addresses California’s grade-level ‘English Language Arts’, ‘History-Social Science’, and ‘Visual & Performing Arts’ Standards, and now supports the Common Core standards. The Center works closely with the school district to ensure the program is in compliance with all changes and enhances learning in the key areas. My Story: Literacy Through the Arts supports 4th and 5th grade students in the Escondido Unified School District, by providing a teaching artist in each classroom.
The overriding goal for the My Story program is to increase students’ language skills, verbal and spoken, and increase the confidence these students have in their public voices while reinforcing core subject curriculum and inspiring connection to both visual and performing arts.
We are proud of our partnership with Escondido Unified School District and excited to receive not only funding, but validation of the strength of our program, to once again receive funds from the California Arts Council, said Leah Goodwin, Director of Museum and Education at the Center “California Arts Council grants support a wide range of projects that are crafted by each community to reflect their values and needs,” said Donn K. Harris, Chair of the California Arts Council. “It is always exciting to see what creative minds attempt to do when working collaboratively. With an increased state investment, we are able to further spark the powerful growth and prosperity that result from the deep arts engagement provided by our grant programs.”
To view a complete listing of all Artists in Schools grantees, visit http://arts.ca.gov/news/pressreleases.php.