Help keep quality arts education alive at Fillmore

[Anonymous]

Dear Community Members,

The DCPS budget for the 2013-2014 school year includes devastating cuts for the Fillmore Arts Center, which provides arts instruction for about 3,500 DCPS elementary school students from 8 elementary schools. Over the past four years, per-pupil funding at Fillmore has dropped by a whopping 40%, and this latest round of cuts would force Fillmore’s principal to eliminate four of the five full-time teaching positions that remain. Those jobs, now held by some of Fillmore’s most popular, experienced and honored teachers, would be replaced by part-time, hourly employees.
Friends of Fillmore, the arts center’s PTA, believes Fillmore will be unable to sustain its award-winning arts programs in the face of these latest cuts. Please sign our petition to Chancellor Henderson to restore $300,000 to Fillmore’s 2013-2014 budget, which would bring its funding back to about the level it was at in the 2011-2012 school year. We see that as the minimum necessary to keep Fillmore viable.
Fillmore urgently needs a broad and united show of support in order to demonstrate the importance of high-quality, diverse arts instruction in specialized spaces to our children's learning, development, and success in the 21st century. Please sign our petition NOW and pass it on!

https://www.change.org/petitions/dc-public-schools-restore-fillmore-arts-center-s-funding-for-next-year?utm_campaign=action_box&utm_medium=twitter+via+%40change&utm_source=share_petition

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Please sign the petition when you have a chance! Thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please sign the petition when you have a chance! Thank you

Would you consider expanding this petition to cover the other DCPS schools that are also suffering the same cuts?

[Anonymous]

My son goes to Fillmore with his ES and I don't support the program b/c he complains about it a lot. Sometimes it turns him off to art.
So, that's my bias. But, I'd like more information.
What is the $ for? Is it "really" to fund teachers? Seems strange b/c cutting a union teacher is a big deal, right. So, I would think that the union would be able to protect the teachers at Filmore. So if "teachers" at Filmore are at risk, does that mean the teachers at Filmore are non-union? I'd like more answers.

[Anonymous]

I will absolutely NOT sign the petition. My daughter attends Fillmore through her ES and its awful. I have two other kids in private school and the quality in arts education is there is so superior to Fillmore it's pathetic. Fillmore is a JOKE.

[Anonymous]

My child attends Fillmore and I'm also not a fan, necessarily. My personal experience has been that the "teachers" are often artists first, making for a classroom where the instructor is not necessarily well suited to or experienced in relating to children. My child has reported back to me that two teachers have had short fuses when it comes to snapping and sniping at the kids. Plus, I don't like that my child has to board a bus and spent valuable instruction time lining up, leaving the school, boarding a bus and commuting to Fillmore...and then doing the whole thing in reverse. It seems wasteful and chaotic. I'd much rather see arts education IN the school.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a fan of Fillmore. But I have to wonder why DCPS is instituting significant cuts when something like 13 schools were just closed...wasn't the idea that closing under-enrolled and under-performing schools would yield MORE resources, not less? Are the cost savings just being used to pad salaries downtown and hire consultants to conduct useless surveys?

[Anonymous]

I don't know much about Filmore but can add to this that our elementary school has a full-time art and a full-time music teacher and that's working very well. The DCPS music curriculum is solid and seems to come with clear guidelines what children should know from year to year. While our music teacher had a few things to learn in managing classrooms, the instruction there now is very well thought through. The art teacher is incredibly inspiring and the art studio at our school is a truly vibrant place to be. Same thing, there seems to be a well thought out curriculum and school-wide, project-based integration of art into the regular classrooms. Both those teachers have been able to enhance what they're doing with grants and partnerships. I wish we had a drama club but, other than that, what we have seems pretty close to the ideal for an otherwise normal (not arts-integration or anything like that) school.

I wonder if DCPS now looks at pieces like Filmore and just doesn't feel like it's a worthwhile investment.

[Anonymous]

There is no reason for kids to leave their schools, take buses to Filmore (hello fuel costs, driver costs, pollution), waste time lining up/going to and from, to do art class. Art should (and can) easily happen in the home school. Perhaps the cost of Filmore should be examined more carefully. How much is DCPS spending just on busing these kids back and forth. That money could be used to bring art instruction into the home school.
It isn't a secret at our school that kids complain about Filmore all the time (as pp's have mentioned: short fused instructors (teachers?, artists?, who knows). Maybe is time to spend our art $$ better.

[Anonymous]

I am also not a fan of Fillmore and would love to see it relocated or shut down. Hardy should take over the third floor of their building and increase their enrollment! Years ago Fillmore was okay, but the quality of arts instruction is laughable. Individual schools should take over their own programs and hire their own art and music teachers. How much does Fillmore charge individual schools per pupil? Plus Fillmore gets money from DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Agree 100% that kids don't have to leave school for arts education (unless it's a field trip to see a play or musical performance). For schools with limited space, the music and art lessons can come to them in their regular classroom. There are many other models that can be pursued instead of shipping kids off-campus. It's ridiculous. Let Fillmore pursue it's money-making endeavors (camps, private lessons, etc.) but it doesn't not need to be DCPS's arts program.

[Anonymous]

Why does DCPS continue to fund this program?

[Anonymous]

Yikes, why all the hate for Filmore? We've got two kids who are or have been in the Filmore programs via ES, and I have nothing but good things to say about it. The teachers get great work out of the kids in art and music; the structure of bringing five schools together into Filmore works great and allows a broader and more diverse set of classes then the kids would receive if instruction occurred at each individual school, and the way the program works - one morning per week instead of shorter periods five times a week - is less disruptive to regular studies, even with transportation.

Filmore is an excellent program. It's absurd that - along with all the other unjustified cuts to schools - DCPS has cut funding for this valuable arts and music program. Please sign the petition.

[Anonymous]

Opps Filmore booster who sent the "Dear Community" letter. Looks like you've inadvertently revealed what parents have long known: lots and lots of parents have big problems with Filmore. There has never been a lot of support for Filmore at our school. Looks like that may be true at other schools too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son goes to Fillmore with his ES and I don't support the program b/c he complains about it a lot. Sometimes it turns him off to art.
So, that's my bias. But, I'd like more information.
What is the $ for? Is it "really" to fund teachers? Seems strange b/c cutting a union teacher is a big deal, right. So, I would think that the union would be able to protect the teachers at Filmore. So if "teachers" at Filmore are at risk, does that mean the teachers at Filmore are non-union? I'd like more answers.

is this Marie Reed? We are thinking about it for PS for next year.