The Long Beach Unified School District is expanding its art curriculum across all K-12 schools to align with state requirements.
During the November 2022 election, California voters passed Prop 28, also known as the Arts and Music in Schools Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act, which is meant to increase arts education funds across the state.
Prop 28 requires the district to establish a new ongoing program that supports visual and performing arts (VAPA) instruction in schools for the 2023-24 school year and beyond.
LBUSD will receive approximately $10.7 million per year starting in July 2023 to expand its arts programs and opportunities across the district; 70% of this funding is based on enrollment and the other 30% is based on a share of low-income impacted schools.
Schools get to decide how to spend their allocated funds based on student needs. However, 80% of these funds need to be spent on new certificated staff—art teachers, classified personnel and teaching aids—while the remaining 20% can be used on supplies, equipment and training.
Some of the current challenges for arts at the elementary level include waitlists for instrumental music instruction, music teachers being split across many sites as well as uneven opportunities for enhancement due to costly programs. With the new funding, each site can expand its programs as well as hire more personnel.
“The spirit is to provide additional access, not supplanting existing programs we already have,” Christine Whipp, VAPA curriculum leader, said.
According to Whipp, all LBUSD schools already submitted proposals for their arts staffing for the 2023-24 school year based on estimated funds.
Some of the changes made possible by Prop 28 funding include greater access to art, dance, theater and music to all elementary school students and increased access to VAPA electives for middle and high school students. New VAPA classes include costume design, script writing, digital animation and more. Existing art programs will also recieve additional staffing and support.
“We are in the space of helping our students have all of the academic skill sets to go on and be the best version of themselves that they can be, but there’s a component of it that are soft skills, and the arts helped do a large part of that,” board member Erik Miller said. “So nothing makes me more excited than to see us emphasizing the importance of that within the Long Beach Unified School District.”
Board member Juan Benitez pointed out that funding arts opportunities outside of school usually depended on fundraising from the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) and emphasized the importance of accounting for schools whose PTA may not be as active.
According to Program Administrator of Professional Learning & Curriculum Services, Nader Twal, Prop 28 funding will help “take the burden [of funding arts opportunities] off of the PTAs.”
“I do know that every kid, regardless of the activity in the fundraising of their PTA, deserves that kind of caliber of an arts education, not only for the outcomes that it provides but for the culture that it preserves and the opportunity that it gives us to become more culturally responsive,” Twal said.
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