Why Arts Education Matters In Baltimore Public Schools | Arts Every Day Episode 164

Art education should be non-negotiable, not something students get only when budgets allow. From keeping students engaged to making subjects like math and science make more sense, the arts build confidence and create more ways for kids to succeed.

In this episode, Executive Director of Arts Every Day Julia DiBussolo shares how the organization is expanding access to certified fine arts teachers across Baltimore City Public Schools. Join their fight to provide classrooms with instruments and equipment, fund field trips, and bring art experiences to students who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity!

Learn how you can donate or attend the Arts Every Day’s 20th Anniversary Celebration on April 25th at the Maryland Center for History and Culture: https://artseveryday.org

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This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/

Transcript

Rethinking Arts As Foundation

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What if the arts weren't an external education, but the foundation? From dance and science class to music unlocking mass skills, today's guest is changing the way students learn across Baltimore City. Welcome back to the Truman Charities Podcast. I am Jamie Truman, your host. Today I'm excited to talk to Julia DiBuslo, Executive Director of Arts Every Day, an organization dedicated to ensuring that every Baltimore City public school student has access to high-quality arts education. Julia shares her personal journey from being a lifelong visual artist to leading a citywide nonprofit that advocates for certified arts teachers, supports schools with essential equipment and supplies, and empowers young people to become art advocates themselves. We'll explore how arts integration transforms subjects like math, science, and social studies, why creative learning is vital for student engagement, and how Arts Everyday is helping shape the next generation of artists and leaders. Now let's welcome Julia to Truman Charities. Julia, I wanted to know a little bit about your background. I know that you joined Arts Everyday in 2012. What led you to want to be a part of this organization? And tell us exactly what Arts Everyday is.

From Artist To Nonprofit Leader

District Partnerships And Teacher Growth

Funding Gear And Instruments

SPEAKER_00 1:19

My background is in visual art. I was 100% an art kid in high school. Ended up going to the Maryland Institute College of Art. From college, I went on to run an organization called the Club at Collington Square. It was an after-school program still around, serving students in East Baltimore. So when this job popped up, I took a leap of faith and applied for it. I was a brand new executive director and back in 2012. And at the core of our mission, we want to see the arts in every public school and every student accessing fantastic arts programs because we know that it's important for education and the development of all children. And so the way we do that is we focus on access to arts education. We work with the school district to organize community members and support to make sure that students have access to certified fine arts teachers during the school day and that they have a robust number of courses that are offered. We do a lot of community organizing and advocacy around that issue. We have partnered with the school district in writing and implementing a fine arts strategic plan, which has been in place since 2018, and has increased the number of fine arts teachers teaching district wide by nearly 150 positions. And we also do a lot of fundraising to support those fine arts teachers once they're in those classrooms by raising funds for large equipment supplies and musical instruments. So think about like a dance bar for a dance classroom, a ceramic kiln for a visual art classroom. All city schools are able to apply for up to$5,000 and receive support in purchasing those large ticket items that never fit into any school's budget. And so that arts education bucket of our mission is just one piece. And one of my favorite components of that part of our mission is our Baltimore Youth Arts Advocacy Council. We work with 12 high school students over the course of the school year. They earn an hourly rate and work with us as their first-time job in learning about arts education from a policy and advocacy level. And so we convene an arts education town hall each year. They go down to Annapolis and meet with legislators, understand the state legislative process, they meet with artists in the community and go and see museums in person. So it's a really hands-on experience that is both arts specific and civic education. So that's the arts education part of our mission. We also have an arts integration part of our mission, which is really focused on helping schools integrate the arts across the curriculum through science, social studies, math, and English, language arts. And so that's an opportunity for teachers to come together and receive training and support, access to supplies to integrate the arts into their classrooms, even if they're not an arts teacher.

Youth Arts Advocacy Council

SPEAKER_01 4:56

So give me an example of say I'm a science teacher. How would I integrate arts into science class?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

That's a really fun one. Science is one of the best ways to do arts integration because it is so application-based, right? And so one example that I've seen in classrooms is learning about the states of matter, you know, solid, liquid, and gas, right? You can read about that in a textbook, or you can talk to students about moving their bodies to embody what it means to be a solid, or what it means to be a gas, or what it means to be a liquid. So I've seen teachers that have put together these really wonderful lessons that incorporate dance into that unit. And not only do students understand the properties of those states of matter, but they know how to embody it and they know what it feels like to occupy space as that state of matter, as of the dance component.

What Arts Integration Looks Like

SPEAKER_01 6:01

So tell me, in your opinion, why do you think daily access to the arts is so important and vital for students, especially in Baltimore City?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

One of the biggest reasons is that for a lot of students, it's the reason why they come to school every day. You know, they see themselves as creatives and they want to be able to engage in the school day in a creative process. Another reason is that not every student learns well through just a textbook teaching environment or looking at things on the whiteboard of the classroom, or sometimes even hearing them. So a lot of students need to be engaged differently. I was a student that struggled a lot with math in school. And when I learned about arts integration, I was blown away. I was like, I could have been learning math this way for my entire elementary, middle, and high school life, and I would have learned it differently. It's just a way of activating learning in a different way so that all learners are engaged and excited about the content.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

So let's go into exactly some of the programs that you offer.

Why Daily Arts Access Matters

Programs: Field Trips And PD

SPEAKER_00 7:10

So I've mentioned the Youth Arts Council. Right. We have the Arts Equipment Fund, which is that that citywide application for equipment supplies and musical instruments. We also raise funds to support access to arts experiences. That includes field trips, trips to museums, tickets to go see a performance at the BSO or Everyman Theater, any one of our local institutions. That funding can also be used for transportation, which is often the most expensive part of a trip. And it can also be used for artist residencies where teaching artists come into schools and support the teacher and do a project with students. So those are a few of our programs. We also do a lot of teacher professional development and we run professional learning communities for both arts integration and supporting brand new arts teachers. And then we have two annual exhibits each year. The 10 by 10 exhibit, which we're collecting artwork right now from schools across the city, usually results in around 300 works of student art from all the way from pre-K to 12th grade. And this year's theme is reflections. And so we'll be collecting all of that artwork and putting it up in our space, and it will be curated by a team of high school students as well. One more exhibit that I just wanted to highlight is our courting art exhibit. And that is a scholarship opportunity where high school students submit a piece of artwork and are considered for college-bound scholarships. And so we'll have the call for entry going out later this year.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Oh wow, that's really amazing. So tell me some of the students that you've known personally or through the organization, through other people that have worked with them that have really been impacted through your organization.

Student Stories And Impact

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Sure. One student in particular that I can remember is a student that really was reading a book about Ruby Bridges, was one of the young girls that desegregated a school in, I believe, Little Rock, Arkansas. And not only did she read the book, but her teacher integrated that with a theatrical component or a and they began to put on the role of Ruby Burgess in the classroom. So students got to really understand what it felt like to be her and to walk through a building that didn't want you there. And they really thought about the text and learned about the theatrical possibilities and the learnings around that in a different way. Another student that I'll just talk about is one of our former youth arts council members, Myra, who is graduated and doing great outside of school. She was a student that really struggled in elementary and middle school with math. And it wasn't until she picked up a clarinet and started to learn how to read music that she really started to understand fractions through quarter notes and rhythm and all of these different musical ideas that helped illuminate the math concepts that she was struggling with in school. And it really just opened up a brand new world to her. She wrote about it, she wrote a testimony about it through the Youth Arts Advocacy Council. She gave that testimony before the School Board of Commissioners, and it helped really illustrate why the arts are so important, not just for their own sake, but also for the sake of students' well-rounded learning.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

You know I never even thought about that. That's very interesting to be using an instrument that will also help with math. So tell me what you personally think is there one thing that you wish people understood more about arts education?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Sure. I really, really wish they understood the arts as fundamental to a child's education, not as something that is an add-on or a resource or something that you do when you have time and money. But that it's it's a really essential part of a student's education. And then I think for everyday folks across the city and for people working in the arts and cultural community, our young people in Baltimore City are the future patrons of all of the great institutions that we know and love. And so arts education really should be a part of their overall focus and mission and should be treated as something that they're really investing in. Our young people are our future leaders and our future artists and makers. And that investment really starts in primary education.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Arts Every Day started with six schools, correct? And what how many schools do you have now?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

We operate a little bit differently now. We expanded up to 40 uh partner schools with our arts integration work. And that's when we realized that we wanted to do more that reached the entire school district. So we had an impact on over 50% of city schools district-wide last year. So I believe the total number was 68 schools. And so all of those schools interacted with us in some way or another. They received funding for an arts experience. They had a student that was enrolled in one of our programs, they had a teacher that went to a professional development that we held. And so we've really thought about how do we have the biggest impact district wide since our founding.

Scaling To District-Wide Impact

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Are there any new programs or initiatives that Arts Everyday plans on implementing in the future?

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yes, we have a really exciting one that we're teaching this summer. It is a youth curatorial program that is growing out of our 10 by 10 exhibit that has that small little curatorial component where students curate that one single exhibit. Well, this summer we'll have students over seven weeks, a team of, I think we have space for up to 15 high school students, that as their summer job will be working with Arts Everyday staff and an incredible cadre of curators from museums across the city, learning about the curatorial practice, learning about art handling, learning about all of the different mechanics that go behind museums and galleries that need to happen in order for you to have an art exhibit. So we're really excited about that. They're going to be going all over the city too to get behind-the-scenes tours from curators so that they get a peek into what that is as a profession.

New Youth Curatorial Program

SPEAKER_01 14:29

Wow, that's really exciting. So, how can our listeners, anybody that's listening, how can we help your organization?

SPEAKER_00 14:37

We are a nonprofit at Bible 1c3. We uh accept donations through our website. We also have our 20th anniversary event coming up this spring on April 25th at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. We would love for your listeners to come out and be a part of that event. It'll start out with a community arts day from 10 to 2, and it'll wrap up with an evening event that will be recognizing some folks that have been really essential to the growth of the organization over the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Oh wow. So where can we find all of this information? How can people follow you?

SPEAKER_00 15:17

You can find us at artseveryday.org, and we're on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as ArtsEveryday. And I hope you all keep in touch with us.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So, Julie, is there anything that we haven't covered that you think people should know?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I don't know. I think we've gotten to all of it. Great. Definitely want to promote the anniversary event. We would really love, especially for families to come out during that daytime event. We'll have uh workshops with local artists and um it'll be a lot of fun. Music, dance, theater, and visual art.

How Listeners Can Help

Event Details And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Awesome. All right. Well, Julia, thank you so much for coming on to the Truman Charities podcast to talk about arts every day. And I want to thank everybody for tuning in to another episode. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Julia. And if you would like to help support the Truman Charities podcast, please make sure to go on to your Apple or Spotify and write a short review. I do read each and every one of them, and it helps us grow our podcast. If you'd like to follow Truman Charities, you can follow us on Instagram at Jamie underscore Truman Charities, Facebook at Truman Charities, and you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jamie Truman. Make sure to go on Trumancharities.com and sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss any of our upcoming events that we have and also our Bethesda's best happy hours. I want to thank you again for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities podcast. Until next time.