A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Elementary Schools

A Standards-Based, Arts-Integrated
Schoolwide Curriculum

OVERVIEW

The state's ambitious academic program, defined in curriculum frameworks for every academic subject, is the focus of education at Worcester Arts. According to Venditti, the arts are the "motivational tools and instruments with which to broaden children's understanding, skill, and knowledge." All students, not just those targeted by a specific program, use a host of artistic experiences to achieve the state's high standards.

Worcester Arts Magnet combines federal Title I, Bilingual Education Act, and special education funds with state and local funding resources and grant awards earned competitively from numerous state and local organizations.

Located in a valley between two low-income housing communities, Worcester Arts serves students from the neighborhood and throughout the city.

Grade Levels PreK-6 Number of Students (1997-98) 453 Schoolwide Since 1992-93 Racial/Ethnic Composition 50%   White 44%   Hispanic 6%   African American

VISION, LEADERSHIP, AND DECISION MAKING

A small group of school faculty, parents, and district personnel saw the promise of creating an arts magnet at Worcester. "It was the best way to bring this school back to life," Venditti recalls. So "we met and met and met," bringing in district and state consultants and specialists when needed to help create the kind of program the planning team envisioned. Then-Chapter I coordinator, John Corcoran, also recognized the benefits of the schoolwide program, and he worked with the design team as it hammered out its plan, a process that continued for a year. Team members distributed newsletters to parents and faculty, surveyed the parents in both Spanish and English, and urged the community to become involved. They were committed to developing a "balanced education for the whole child, intellectually, aesthetically, and linguistically," using a full-inclusion model that opened learning opportunities to all children. The school continues to closely monitor assessment results and "checks the pulse of the community regularly;" Venditti reports they are always asking: "Are we meeting the goals of various programs? Are we accomplishing improvement goals for students?"

A fluid steering committee works under the principal's direction to keep the Worcester Arts program running smoothly. This is a "loose group" of teachers and administrators, says Venditti. "We can deal with anything, discipline, curriculum, [teachers' ideas and concerns]....It's an idea forum...a continuing needs assessment team ranging from 20 to 25 people. The size depends on the topic," she explains. There is also an elected body, the School Governance Council, which is composed of parents and faculty, that meets monthly to consider schoolwide issues, including budgets, school improvement matters, and student activities.

Through the School Governance Council and other school committees, teachers and parents regularly advise the principal on the budget, school improvement, and student achievement.

Teachers and parents form a powerful partnership at Worcester Arts Magnet. In 1996-97, 18 committees—each comprising a mix of teachers, support staff, administrators, and parents—undertook a self-study to attain accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Over the course of a full year, the committees prepared a detailed status report about the school and reasserted the school's commitment to its unique integrated arts and academic program. According to the school's mission statement: "Our faculty strives to...integrate the arts in everyday lessons [because] they help students tap into their creative strengths, raising their self-esteem and enabling them to experience both academic and artistic success."

STUDENT PERFORMANCE RESULTS

The accountability orientation has so increased the faculty's commitment to using test results that, in 1996, Worcester Arts Magnet students achieved the state's sixth-highest relative gain on the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program. Academic progress continues to grow in all other tested content areas as well. Each year, students at every grade level take a commercially developed test: the Stanford Achievement Test, the Iowa Reading Test, the Metropolitan Achievement Tests, or the new Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. All bilingual students take the Ideal Proficiency Test and the Language Assessment Scale.

The central office prepares disaggregated test reports annually, and grade-level teaching teams scrutinize the results in light of students' portfolios and teachers' observations of student progress in their classrooms. Faculty members use these periodic analyses to redirect the academic program.

Parents receive a copy of all test results and a district-developed assessment information handbook. At periodic parent and teacher meetings on assessment, the curriculum specialist interprets the overall school and individual student's test results and helps parents understand how the school uses them on behalf of students.

RESEARCH-BASED REFORM STRATEGIES

Literacy is at the heart of the schoolwide program at Worcester Arts Magnet. Students learn to read using a "balanced" language arts program that teaches phonics, literature, and writing as a way for students to better understand their world. The reading program also involves learning with parents and fellow students, poetry writing and reading, journal writing, performing, listening to stories on tapes, making charts, corresponding with pen pals, and writing and illustrating original stories. The arts teachers, along with the curriculum specialists and other support personnel, join regular classroom teachers during reading instruction so that instructional groups are as small as possible. Literacy is taught across the content areas when students study native cultures in social studies or promote a healthy community environment through their science program. Reading Recovery is available to lower-grade students who are not keeping up with their peers; a specialist in the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Program supports readers at risk in the third and fourth grades. A creative writing specialist visits each classroom for 50 minutes a week as part of the arts block.

Curriculum writing teams periodically reconvene to determine whether program modifications are necessary based on the most recent student achievement results and observationsfrom colleagues and parents.

Learning occurs actively at Worcester Arts. As early as preschool, students prepare performances and exhibitions and display their work in classrooms and in hallways throughout the school. Each third- through sixth-grade student produces a research project or an exhibit and discusses it at the annual Projects Fair. Some students also serve as classroom "facilitators" in lower-grade classrooms. As part of the "Drop Everything and Read in School Today" program, teachers pair "emerging readers" with more experienced, upper-grade readers to help struggling students improve underdeveloped reading skills.

Although Howard Gardner's research on multiple intelligences is the intellectual foundation for arts-integrated instruction at Worcester Arts, other research-based programs complement the core curriculum. After reviewing student portfolios, teachers decided that students were adept at rote mathematics but appeared to be missing broader concepts. They adopted the Number Worlds program, an interactive, hands-on mathematics program that develops mathematical skills by letting students use manipulative tools to build on their spontaneous thinking about numbers. Dimensions of Learning and the Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Laboratory promote problem-centered teaching and learning and support students who require more direct lessons on how to use their analytical thinking more effectively.

Learning occurs actively at Worcester Arts. Beginning in preschool, students share "expeditions" with one another and with parents through performances or through displays in classrooms and throughout the school's hallways. Both parents and students become involved in reading and writing poetry, journal writing, and corresponding with pen pals through the Internet.

The physical environment is the organizing theme for the science curriculum. Students study recycling as the content theme but they apply scientific concepts through the arts program. Some examples of activities that students undertake in science include recycling materials to design and build a robot, writing poetry about recycling and setting poems to music, and sharing what they learn about the environment in their projects, their poetry, and their music. In the upper grades, students use Science Through Experimental Procedures to conduct experiments and keep journals detailing what they learn each day.

Each grade level is fully staffed with certified teachers, supported by certified bilingual and special education teachers and classroom assistants. All teachers co-teach to reduce pupil-to-teacher ratios. Worcester Arts supports a growing population of Spanish-speaking students with ESL and bilingual classes. To help non-English-speakers achieve the same high standards as other students, the bilingual program coordinates its learning objectives, scope and sequence charts, and lesson plans with the other teachers. Bilingual students use native language textbooks that mirror those used in the student program; that way, when they transition out of bilingual classes, their core knowledge of the major disciplines is on the same level as their English-fluent peers.

All teachers co-teach to reduce pupil-to-teacher ratios.

A student support team, including the principal, the curriculum specialist, and current and former classroom teachers, is available to students facing continuing academic risks. Together the team identifies specific weaknesses and, after consultation with parents, determines how to help the student overcome the identified problems. Some possible solutions may include additional time for mathematics or reading instruction, a small instructional group setting for a particular subject area, or psychological testing for specific learning disabilities.

THE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

Teachers' areas of expertise include elementary education, the arts and cognition, special education, creative arts in learning, administration, planning, and social policy. One teacher participated in a museum education project to help kindergartners develop observation and experimentation skills through art. One of the Harvard scholars focused her studies on parent involvement and conducted workshops increasing parent involvement through decisionmaking and participation. Other workshops that Worcester Arts Magnet staff attended have addressed family involvement in children's education, classroom management, parenting, family literacy, and an introduction to using Macintosh computers. As staff participate in citywide assessment workshops, they return to share their knowledge with their colleagues. Finally, preschool and kindergarten teachers' participation in the National Association for the Education of Young Children's accreditation program eventually resulted in the accreditation of the Worcester Arts early childhood program.

In a typical year, faculty participate in more than 40 different courses and workshops. More than half of the staff have been working on their masters' degree or, in some cases, have received a second or third masters' degree since they joined the faculty.

Professional development at Worcester Arts is based on individual as well as building-level needs. New teachers are brought into the traditions of the arts-integrated approach by collegial mentors, and the school continually surveys the staff to assess areas in which they need additional training. New staff "need the opportunities to become as proficient as others—especially in the arts and how to integrate them throughout the curriculum," Venditti explains. Evaluation is also integral to the professional development process. In the fall, as part of the annual staff evaluation, Venditti and each staff member review the past year's achievements and set new professional development goals for the coming year.

PARENT AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

The doors are open at Worcester Arts early in the morning and late into the night. The extended day for students provides one hour of extra time for special arts, music, and drama activities, including a student chorus and instrument lessons. A Community Partnerships Grant provides child care for families who work or attend school for 30 hours a week. This collaborative serves up to 20 preschoolers through third-graders and is open on school vacations and school delay days.

Fliers in both Spanish and English invite parents to attend school meetings, where babysitting is available for children without other adult-supervised care. A bilingual staff member interprets for parents who do not speak English, and she often conveys their concerns to the school's various governance councils. In addition to the fliers and periodic information sheets, the principal and teachers each write and distribute newsletters to the community. A monthly calendar featuring field trips, special programs, and other events is also available in English and Spanish. Worcester Arts' bilingual counselor and psychologist assist students and their families, and, in preparation for preschool, a bilingual family liaison conducts home visits to families with two-year-olds.

Community service is important to the staff and to the school community. Some examples of annual activities for students and their families include a bottle and can drive to raise money for Thanksgiving Baskets, a holiday fair to raise money for a local project supplying gifts to needy families, and a canned goods drive to help a local food bank. The staff and students assist at the Medical Center of Central Massachusetts. Parents and children fill "love bowls" with candy every month for patients receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments. They also decorate monthly bulletin boards in the patient waiting area. The school values this exchange, "a bridge to life outside of school," because it instills in students a sense of responsibility and commitment to the broader community.

SUSTAINING CHANGE

Principal Venditti reports that one of her greatest challenges is "keeping up with the vast amount of research on teaching and learning...to make sure you don't just hop on the bandwagon because something is in vogue, but because you know that it works...and that it is based on a solid foundation of research...." District-level expertise has been crucial in building a research-based program. Most recently, the district office has offered programs on balancing literacy through phonics, whole language, and student assessment, including portfolio and other authentic assessments.

Keeping up with the rapidly advancing research on teaching and learning is a major challenge to sustaining the momentum at Worcester Arts Magnet.

It is hard to keep a collaborative organization moving, Venditti acknowledges. "It takes so much time to involve people, it's hard to schedule, and teachers are tired." But she takes pleasure in the degree to which people rally around the school. Parents and teachers feel joint ownership of the school's major plans and activities, and the faculty has been very stable. Worcester Arts' administrative approach combines dedication and patience with two basic organizational principles: meetings that have tight agendas and a system for implementing what has been planned together. The process works well, confirms Barbara Ann Masley, the curriculum coordinator who chaired the school's self-study. According to her introduction to the school's accreditation report, at Worcester Arts Magnet, the community has created a school where "the whole is much larger than the sum of the parts."

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