Portland Public Schools

Portland Public Schools offers a wide range of arts at all levels. (Photos by Beth Conyers, Leif Sjoquist)

Portland Public Schools offers a wide range of arts at all levels. (Photos by Beth Conyers, Leif Sjoquist)

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As Portland Public Schools continues to work to create a comprehensive roadmap for arts education throughout the district, we need your input!

What do you value most about arts education? The PPS Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA) is conducting a survey to gauge what students, families, community members, arts partners and staff want to prioritize in creating the district’s Master Arts Education Plan (MAEP).

Click here to take the survey

The survey was created by the VAPA team: Kristen Brayson, Carolyn Drake and Laura Arthur. The survey is part of VAPA’s engagement effort throughout the district and community this year as members continue to form the MAEP. The team consulted high school students from every region in the district, who helped shape the survey’s format and make the wording of questions more user-friendly.

Currently, depending on where students live and go to school, their arts experience may differ from their peers across the district. The MAEP will help address inequities in our system and provide a strategic plan for implementing large-scale change.

The MAEP builds on the opportunities made possible by the Portland Arts Tax, which was implemented by a ballot measure in 2012. PPS is required to use money from the tax to pay certified visual and performing arts teachers for students in kindergarten to fifth grade. Revenue from the tax allowed PPS to go from the equivalent of 15 full-time arts teachers for K-5 students to 63 who serve 21,738 students across all elementary schools.

The MAEP will seek to create complete pathways for each cluster of schools (the feeder systems that takes students from elementary to middle and high school in their attendance areas). The pathways for each cluster are intended to include multiple K-12 pathways rooted in dance, music, theatre and visual arts -- with the goal of all students receiving uninterrupted instruction in several arts disciplines from elementary school all the way through high school.

When complete, the MAEP will lay the groundwork for complete K-12 pathways through which students receive a rigorous, meaningful, and equitable arts education.

Learn more about arts in PPS at www.ppsarts.com.