Arts for LA will be conducting a survey all of the candidates running for LA City Council, LAUSD Board, Pasadena City Council and Pasadena USD Board prior to the March 8, 2011 elections.  LA City and Pasadena are the sites of our current advocacy workshop series, with the goal of creating a team of arts advocates to ensure that the arts are part of the election discourse.

The objective of the survey is to inform candidates as well as local stakeholders about the importance of the arts and its role in preparing students to participate in the 21st century workforce, creating a vibrant and thriving community, and creating a civically engaged citizenry.

Arts for LA recently conducted a survey of the candidates that ran for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board. Thank you to all the candidates who responded to our survey and congratulations to the winners. The survey asked candidates to comment on their District’s Arts Education Plan and gave them the opportunity to articulate their awareness and support of arts education in their district.

Candidate responses were often thoughtful, insightful and demonstrated deep understanding of arts education as a critical component of a complete education. Nimish Patel, a new Board member, stated, “To me, Art and Music is a priority just like math and English. They are complimentary to each other and provide the building blocks to each other’s mastery.” Laurie Lieberman, a new Board member, stated in the survey, “I see opportunities to absorb and integrate arts instruction into the curricula of other disciplines – math, language(s), history, social studies, and even physical education – to ensure that exposure to the arts is guaranteed to every student in every area of interest.”  We thank all the Santa Monica Arts Education Advocates for making this important issue a part of the election discourse.

Arts for LA and our Advocacy Teams will follow the same process for the elections in the City of LA & Pasadena. We look forward to hearing from the candidates and sharing their responses.

Join Us at our next Workshop; RSVP here.