CCSESA

Challenging and Relevant Curriculum

Engage every group of students in comprehensive, well-articulated, and age-appropriate visual and performing arts curriculum that also purposefully builds a full range of language, literacy, and other content area skills, including whenever possible, bilingualism, biliteracy, and multiculturalism. This curriculum is cognitively complex, coherent, relevant, and challenging.

Overview for Principle 3: Challenging and Relevant Curriculum

Planning Tool for Principle 3: Challenging and Relevant Curriculum

Around the state of California, students and teachers, schools and communities, are rising to the challenge of creating high-quality arts education, often in very difficult circumstances. Below are some examples of challenging and relevant curriculum utilized in schools.

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School/District	Description	Online resource	Contact information
Peralta Elementary School	Videos such as the Yosemite Story, Peralta Land Change Over Time, The Rain, 22 Ways to Save the Earth, and the Great Chief of the Sky Spirit reveal culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy that improves learning and develops leadership.	Click Here to View Video	Trena Noval tnoval@speakeasy.net
San Juan Arts Community Arts Integration Lessons	Sample lessons are shared from the San Juan Arts Community. The core intention of arts education in San Juan is to teach all students the essential elements of the visual and performing arts through standards-based classroom instruction, guided practice, and performance.	Click Here to go to Web site	Craig Faniani cfaniani@sanjuan.edu
San Juan Unified School District	For more videos, visit the District Events section of the site. Scroll down to the video "Arts Integration, Programs, Highlights and Testimonials" to see examples of how the arts can integrate into other curricular areas.	Click Here to go to Web site	Craig Faniani cfaniani@sanjuan.edu
Grizzly Hill School	A small, rural school in San Juan Ridge demonstrates success in the arts. Grizzly Hill School (K-8) is the only school in California to be featured in the AEP’s report on arts success in at-risk schools, “Third Space: When Learning Matters.”	Click Here To View PDF	Robert Bullwinkel bbullwinkel@fcoe.k12.ca.us
Walnut Elementary Education Center Turlock Unified	Short video highlighting how Walnut Elementary teacher-leaders work together with administrators to engage families and infuse the arts throughout all curriculum.	Click Here To View Video	Mark Holmes MHolmes@turlock.k12.ca.us
Chula Vista High School SCPA Sweetwater Unified	Short video in-depth description of an 800-student arts “school within a school” in an inner city setting.	Click Here To View Video	Ron Jessee ronarts@sdcoe.net
San Diego Unified	Short video description of standards-based professional development for teachers delivered by teaching artists.	Click Here To View Video	Ron Jessee ronarts@sdcoe.net
Buellton Union School District	Short video highlight honoring Ron Zell, teacher of the year, who shares his thoughts and ideas on integrating the arts.	Click Here To View Video	Ron Zell rzell@buelltonusd.org

	Thorner Elementary School Thorner Elementary School's curriculum is based upon the California Visual and Performing Arts Content Standards, as found in the Visual and Performing Arts Framework, 2004.
	Garfield Elementary School Garfield Elementary School is a rural, one-school district serving a total of 61 students in grades K-6. The school offers standards-based arts instruction in all four arts disciplines.
	Los Angeles Unified School District Arts Instructional Guide The Arts Education Branch of LAUSD has completed a draft of their K-6 Arts Instructional Guides (AIG), and is piloting the guidelines this year in their 310 elementary Arts Program Schools.
	Monson-Sultana In 1994, the new superintendent, Mr. Tom Giampietro, saw that the band program was less than satisfactory for this small school district.
	Capistrano Unified School District - The MITRE Project District middle school visual arts teachers met monthly for three hours after school throughout a year to create a standards-based curriculum for our students that would have clear goals.