Saratoga's Montalvo Arts Center Partners With Campbell Schools

Montalvo Arts Center has announced that this fall it will partner with the Campbell Union School District to assist in the implementation of arts-focused lesson plans.

The program will help teach new so-called common core state educational standards to 10 elementary schools, the center said in a press release.

The announcement comes as the culmination of Montalvo'’s year-long relationship with Lynhaven Elementary School, where the center brought teaching artists to work directly with teachers to redesign their lesson plans to emphasize multidisciplinary creativity and problem-solving, according to the release.

The partnership is an affirmation of the center's six-year-old  program, said Montalvo Arts Center Executive Director Angela McConnell.

Montalvo Arts Center's Teaching Artist program is a joint initiative between Montalvo's Education Department and the Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Programs.

It is the first national award of its kind dedicated to professionals in the teaching artist field, and it facilitates a four-month partnership between the artists and a local secondary school and/or university for curriculum development, the release said.

Teaching artists work with students and teachers to design and implement lesson plans using dance, painting, music, poetry, visual, and the culinary arts to teach science, reading comprehension and math.

The program, launched in 2007 with a pilot partnership at Downtown College Prep, has grown every year since.
 
Ten teaching artists were placed in two Santa Clara County elementary schools——Lynhaven Elementary in the Campbell Union School District and Schallenberger Elementary in the San Jose Unified School District——to work with every teacher in grades K-5.

The lessons blended creative movement with biology, cooking with fractions, and art history with persuasive writing.

The scholastic gains made by students, gaged from pre- and post-writing assessments administered in April 2013, were remarkable, the release said.

The modified lesson plans shifted approximately 26 percent of the students out of "far below basic" and "basic" levels to "proficient" or "advanced" levels, with average gains in the advanced performance level at an average of 8 percent per grade level, the release added.

Montalvo announced it will continue its programs at grades K-5 at Schallenberger, and will expand its presence to all second-grade classrooms within the CUSD as the district implements its new STEAM initiative.

Sixty-three classroom teachers will collaborate with their chosen Montalvo teaching artist to design cross-disciplinary curricula and activities tied to grade-specific common core standards for writing.

Residencies will last from 8-10 weeks beginning in late September/early October and classroom teachers play an active role during the weekly sessions, the release said.