This week, Arts Every Day launched the first of its four part Arts Advocacy Foundation Series- a series of workshops aimed at diving deeper into the policy, budget, and logistics behind advocating for arts education in Baltimore City Public Schools. This intensive set of meetings is intended to equip parents and community members with the tools needed to effectively understand and navigate the City Schools budget process and identify key players in decisions that impact access to arts education in City Schools.
The Parent Arts Education Action Committee (PAEAC) is a community of stakeholders that includes the fathers, mothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, friends and neighbors of students who attend schools within the Baltimore City Public School District for the specific purpose of mobilizing for the arts during the 2023-24 school year.
The first session kicked off with informative presentaion on Maryland State arts regulations from Rachel McGrain, Executive Director of Arts Education in Maryland Schools (AEMS) and was followed up with an intorduction to the state of the arts in City Schools with Baltimore City Public Schools Fine Arts Coordinator, Chan’nel Howard.
The group also learned about thier own leadership styles, reflected on all the informtion they received, and shared powerful personal narratives that eventually lead them to become more involved in the arts in their students’ schools.
The next session, titled Show me The Money: Understanding the school budget process as a tool for advocacy development, will focus on Fair Student Funding, Principal Budget Autonomy, and School Family Councils and will be lead by Shar Hollingsworth of the Office of Community Engagement, and Marc La Veau, Family and Commuinty Engagement Specialist.
