Anthony Lee Perry

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.

One of my best experiences I've had was taking drama class in High School. This class impacted me because it made me more attentive to details. While working on our schools first stage play, my teacher taught us how to pay attention to detail and how important it was to work with others together.

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?

Arts education helps students to use critical thinking skills in their daily lives. These skills help students prepare for college and/or the workforce.

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)?

The school board need to ensure the arts are incorporated into the full curriculum. Having a well balanced education for all students is important for our children's learning.

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?

One objective when it come to the LCAPS, is to ensure we are operating a full strength. The main goal is to ensure time, money and resources are not being wasted and all arts education programs are fully functional.

H. Ernie Nishii

City: ABC Unified
Position Seeking: Board Member Trustee Area 3

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.

My mom is an artist. I lived art daily. I even had tie died underwear. Art gets to your soul. When the rational doesn’t sink in art passes through our conscious mind to our essence. My mom’s art depicting the incarceration of thousands of innocent Americans of Japanese descent hits us in the primal part of our brain. That is,the most effective way to prevent it from happening again in a country that guarantees freedoms.

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?

Jobs was an Artist. Einstein was an Artist. The future lies with artists and the free concepts of expression. Not necessarily the programmer. If you love to express yourself you will do it through art and through writing. They are not mutually exclusive and come from the same part of the brain. If you love school you will do better. Art helps you express yourself and therefore if you associate school with art and expression you will do better.

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)?

The board can encourage art through scheduling and through enabling world class artists in our classrooms. We did that at Leal. We got world class Korean dance instructor to teach our kids. We did an rfp to get a great artist to do a project with kids. We used Paul Soldner techniques for elementary kids. We don’t dumb down. We elevate.

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?

Parents. We were able to fundraise 100k per year to get extra arts instruction. We got parents to pay the teachers for tutoring and the profits after paying the teacher were used for the kids.

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.

Gregory Pitts

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.

One of my most meaningful experiences with the arts growing up has to be when I took drawing in high school. I had never been particularly artistic and couldn’t draw at all. My teacher was very encouraging and thoughtfully guided me through one of my favorite concepts in art, perspective. I really enjoyed the ways in which on could play with scale and show movement. Although much of what you do with perspective requires you to use a ruler, I felt that I became skilled in this area. Because of the teacher I had, I became more confident in what I didn’t know I was capable of.

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?

Arts education has a great influence on improving the educational outcomes of our students. For example, this is why the ‘A,’ was added to the S.T.E.M. acronym bringing about S.T.E.A.M. The influence of the arts on science education is tremendous. Without the arts, we would never have the visually appealing style of some of our most beloved pieces of technology such as the iPhone and many other Apple products. Students need to understand that there is a niche for them in any field of study that they may want to embark upon, and the arts are the common thread. Whether it is drama, graphic arts, music et cetera. The arts can open up many doors to new and untapped abilities within all of our students that they didn’t know where available to them.

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)?

School boards have a moral obligation to ensure that all students have access to relevant and viable arts programming that will allow them to explore their untapped abilities that will make them more competitive in the post-secondary arena and the world of work.

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?

In light of the LCAPs eight goals, my plan would be to partner with as many stakeholders as possible. Including parents, PTSA groups, city and local officials, businesses, and nonprofit organizations that can offer enrichment programming that will help to enhance the experiences of our students and move us toward meeting those goals.

School District: Redondo Beach USD

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.

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?

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)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

School District: Redondo Beach USD

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.

My most meaningful personal experience was with music. I was selected, as an elementary school student, to become part of a community choir. I learned about vocal music along with the value of working hard as a team and overcoming the fear of performance. I gained a deep appreciation for good music that has stayed with me to this day…am I’m still not bad at carrying a tune.

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?

We know about the links between art and English, between music and math, and between artistic expression and general well-being. In our District we have a commitment to the whole child which fits well within the more holistic view of education. The arts are part of this.

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)?

Funding is the obvious challenge for all California schools. But with that said, we are pushing hard to keep the arts in our curricula. Visual arts and music are part of our classroom instruction. Our role is to keep them there, to the maximum extent possible, and also to work closely with our PTAs and Education Foundation to help bridge the funding gaps, particularly at the elementary level.

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Our LCAPs all have roles for art education, both District-funded and PTA/Ed Foundation sponsored. Student Achievement will benefit as we keep adequate student access to arts education. Parent involvement is also a win-win in PTA-sponsored District-supported programs such as our Hands On Art projects.

School District: Redondo Beach USD

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.

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?

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)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

School District: Redondo Beach USD

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.

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?

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)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

School District: Pasadena USD – District 5

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.

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?

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)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

School District: Pasadena USD – District 3

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.

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?

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)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?