Barbara Jean Calhoun

City: Compton Unified
Position Seeking: Board Member

Question 1: Please share a meaningful experience you had with art (visual, dance, drama, music, media arts) while growing up and its impact on you.

When I was growing up, our family did not have much of anything, what we did have was the radio and a record player. My mother called it fun time, we singed and danced all over the house. When my children were born we did not have much, we had fun time, I would buy coloring books for all of us and we had music. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, still dance and have a color book challenge.

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Imagine society without the civilising influence of the arts and you'll have to strip out what is most pleasurable in life and much that is educationally vital. Take the collective memory from our museums; remove the bands from our schools and choirs from our communities; lose the empathetic plays and dance from our theaters or the books from our libraries; and all cultures will not survive with imagination. We all need the ARTS!

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

To ensure that there is a strong relationship between arts and culture engagement and educational attainment. We will see an improvement in literacy when young people take part in drama and library activities and better performance in maths and languages when they take part in structured music activities.

Question 4: In light of the Local Control Funding Formula and development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), what are your creative solutions for achieving goals in the eight priority areas?

Stakeholder engagement is a major condition of constructing a district LCAP, a district level parent advisory committee and an English learner parent advisory committee must be formed, I've tried to find out when they meet to no avail. I attend the board meetings and they will talk a little about this but not much or when, where or time of meeting. I have no children or grandchildren in the Compton unified school district anymore, maybe that is why I have not received a survey, since written responses to these groups are not required in the legislation.