1. Mission: To provide children with an education which has high academic standards that is truly community based, incorporates and respects the lives of students and their families, engages student in understanding their own cultures and communities and engages students in understanding their role as active participants in working for a just society.

2. Folk Arts • Represent time-honored vernacular education systems • Function as ways of teaching and passing on valued knowledge • Owned by and known within the communities of our students • Connected to community values and convey meaning to people

3. Committee Questions • 458 K-8 grade students • No set art budget (aprx. $4,000 per year) • No formal art show • Students work is shown at Moore & City Hall • Curriculum: http://www.culturetools.org/about.html • Strengths: experienced teachers • Weaknesses: students ONLY have art 1x week • One art teacher (Eric Joselyn) w/many visiting artists • 18 classes per week K-8 + Morning meeting 2x week

4. Examples of Student Work

5. STATEMENT OF PHILOSOPHYWe are a Friends school, under the care of Germantown Monthly Meeting, founded on the belief that there is that of God in everyone. Together, love and respect for each individual provide the premise for all that we do. We regard education not as training for a particular way of life, but as part of a lifelong process, and as we guide and encourage our students in their personal growth, we try to cultivate and support in them principles that Friends have long considered to have lasting value. Among these are truthfulness, simplicity and self-discipline, the resolution of differences without violence, and respect for diverse heritages and experiences.

6. They believe…(and are supported in stating) One of our middle school’s defining strengths is its art program.  The curriculum is well grounded in traditional instruction seasoned with a dose of the latest technology.  Our students are talented and creative and provided with a wide range of opportunities to express themselves

7. Committee Questions • 220 6-8 grade students • Budget? • District Wide Art Show, 1 night per year • Student work entered into local contests, ie. Philadelphia Water Dept. • Curriculum: • ART: The program explores color theory, composition and design, symmetry and balance, and perspective; it develops students’ skills through a sequence of varied projects. These projects encourage experimentation with various media. In addition, students learn art history by exploring how different artists have solved problems.  This required course meets once a week in grade 6, and four times a week for half the year in grades 7 and 8.

8. Committee Questions Continued… • Clubs meet during the school day (twice per week during lunch) and include: • “Project Time” a double period of elective time meeting once a week for a trimester’s length. During the Project Time computer course, students are given an opportunity to extend their skills in web, multimedia, digital video, desktop publishing and graphic design and to pursue other areas of special interest, such as learning html. Many middle school students who work on middle school publications such as the yearbook, the newspaper and the literary magazine are given the opportunity to further develop their desktop publishing, graphic design, and layout skills. • For the other two trimesters, they choose a community involvement project, such as working with nursery children at the Boys and Girls Club, or learningabout deaf culture at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, and an activity like drama, woodshop, or photography. The 8th grade prepares and performs a musical review each winter; students may choose an activity for fall and spring. • Quaker School – based on religious guidelines, Private School • Two art teachers @ middle school: • Debra Hoffman & Robert Reinhardt

9. Examples of Student Work http://www.gfsnet.org/msweb/msart/MS_Art/Middle_School_Gallery.html

10. Strengths to be added to LM: • The art department is held in high regard • Use of $ for outside art support • Art department has their own web page • Artwork displayed outside of school • Students have art MORE OFTEN • ART IS VISIBLE • It is on the website, in the buildings AND SUPORTED