Jim Griffin for Congress

District Leadership Core Values

 

The Connecticut State Department of Education supports and encourages arts leadership in school districts and provides clear guidance for the implementation these positions. CAAA strongly encourages K-12 Arts Leadership in every district and provides support to district arts leaders and to district administrators looking to develop these positions.

K-12 Arts Leaders may be responsible for:

  • Arts Scheduling
  • Curriculum design and implementation
  • Various levels of evaluation 
  • Budget and arts equipment and supply acquisition
  • Program development
  • Supervision/coordination of co-curricular components of arts programs
  • Theatrical facility management and coordination 
  • Performance technology (lighting, sound, theatrical, digital ticketing)
  • Arts support services (accompanists, stipend staff, marching band staff, etc)
The person in this role should be directly involved in K-12 scheduling. While the arts need not drive a schedule, they must be considered at the start of schedule development to ensure proper design. 

WHY DOES MY DISTRICT NEED ARTS LEADERSHIP?

  • Arts programs utilize the highest amount of equipment and consumables of any school department. With instruments often costing thousands of dollars each and art supplies required for all programs, arts expenditure needs to be handled by a qualified individual.
  • Acquisition of supplies, instruments and repairs, including the development of contracts, RFP and bids can cost districts hundreds of thousands in unneeded expenses if not handled correctly. Developing this strategic plan needs the guidance of a trained professional. 
  • Arts departments often need to maintain, manage and inventory millions of dollars in equipment and supplies. Coordinated maintenance, safety protocols, repairs and strategic capital improvement planning is needed. 
  • Scheduling for arts is unique. Programs often deteriorate or are decimated simply because of inadequate scheduling. Scheduling arts programs correctly can be the most inexpensive and most impactful decision a building administrator can make. Because of the unique qualities of course such as band, choir and orchestra, scheduling must be handled appropriately. 
  • If music scheduling is handled appropriately, it can often lower other class sizes in the building and positively impact intervention programs, other unified arts classes and even academic classes. 
  • The arts is the academic subject with largest co-curricular component. All music and theatre program have requires components outside of the school day that require coordination, guidance and evaluation.
    • This co-curricular component is often the single largest public/community presence in a school each year and often the only time a taxpayer is entering your building. Teachers need guidance and support and these events need to be showcase moments for your school community. 
    • Arts programs represent your school, district and community off campus at local, regional and national events from galleries to parade to competitive performance trips. These events not only need to represent your school but need to be effectively planned. 
  • Look at any district in the State of Connecticut with a top-tier arts program, and you will also find that school at the higher end of state test scores, school attendance data and overall achievement. School arts programs create student buy-in, builds academic community, support SEL goals and directly impacts the most important administrative data points. 
  • Arts programming is a part of NEASC evaluation and is a component of data reported to and available through EdSight and The Arts Ed Data Project.