At the Escambia County (Ala.) Board of Education meeting Jan. 24, Flomaton Elementary School Principal George Brown presented an overview of the art program at the school this year to the school board, allowing 3rd grader Chloe Johnson and 2nd grader Cam Crawford to show board members their portfolios.
“When I got to FES, I tried to figure out what we could do to support the academics we have here, and I noticed we did not have art,” said Brown. “Coming from a county that had it at every school, I saw the benefits of it. My kids would come home every day and talk about what they learned about in art and music class. I think art is important it goes hand in had with the academics. It's an outlet and brings out excellence in academics.”
Brown said since there were no art teachers in the county, he contacted a former colleague who had taught art at Spanish Fort High School, art teacher Kelly Denton. Denton had recently started her own company called Paint Slingers, which supplements all the elementary schools in Baldwin County in their after school care.
Denton, a certified art teacher, got on board with the program. Brown said Title Funds will help support the program, allowing Denton to bring three certified teachers twice a month to the school.
“We developed a schedule where she moves to each classroom, where an actual an art day is scheduled,” said Brown. “The teachers plan around it and align their lessons with the art projects. It's a thematic unit, 'Road Trip Across America.' The class talks about and explores different cities across the United States and what famous sites and things those cities are famous for.”
Brown said every time Denton and her team come to teach art, students are creating things from those cities, teaching them about what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Each student has a portfolio they keep in their homeroom to hold their projects. Brown said the school has planned an art show in the spring, inviting parents to come see artworks and the students' projects, displaying them all throughout the school.
Brown said it's not just art, but it is art-based learning in the academic realm as well.
“That was the way I wanted to go with the art, not just to go in and paint something and be done,” he said. “So I asked, how can we correlate it with the standards the teachers are teaching, and this art movement came to light. The kids have just loved it.”
