Citywide SFUSD Arts Festival opens Saturday, April 29

Posted Date

Citywide SFUSD Arts Festival opens Saturday, April 29

Press Release

This coming weekend and throughout the week, thousands of students, teachers and community members will be streaming through the Asian Art Museum to see what San Francisco’s students have been thinking, drawing, filming and practicing all year long.

 

Students in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD)are getting a well-rounded arts education, and the SFUSD Arts Festival is a living portfolio for the public to see the creative and artistic work happening in city schools. The nine-day celebration displays many arts disciplines, from two-dimensional visual art to sculpture and film, from dance to orchestras, and poetry to short fiction.

For more than 30 years this event has been a destination for families, teachers, artists, and community members from San Francisco and beyond. Every student in a San Francisco school, including public, private, independent, and parochial schools, is eligible to be part of this annual festival.

More than 10,000 children are showcasing their talents.

The Festival runs from April 29 to May 7, 2017 and is free to the public. The museum will be open on Monday, May 1 for school groups only.

 

Youth made films and opera

New this year, a media arts event will be held on May 5 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  The SFOpera ARIA festival is taking place on Saturday, May 6, 11am-5pm in the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, Veterans Building.  Both institutions strongly support  San Francisco being an exciting campus of arts learning for SFUSD students; a vision of SFUSD’s master plan for the arts.  

 

Arts programs flourishing in schools

While other California public schools have been taking the arts out of the school day the last several decades, SFUSD has been adding them.

 

During the most recent recession, the Public Education Enrichment Fund (PEEF) allowed SFUSD to not only preserve the number of elementary arts teachers, but to increase staffing by over 50 percent. At the same time, the district increased the number of middle school students learning in and through the arts.

 

Access and Equity in Arts Education: 2015-16 SFUSD Elementary/K-8 Arts Profiles

In an effort to provide school site planning teams, parents, arts providers and community partners with a tool for well-designed arts programs at elementary and K-8 schools, the district also recently released 2015-16 SFUSD Elementary School Arts Profiles.

Though it reflects the prior school year, this comprehensive report summarizes arts instruction offered to students in grades K-5 at all 72 San Francisco Unified School District elementary and K-8 schools for the first time. It analyzes arts instruction funded by a variety of sources including the PEEF, the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and their Families (DCYF), and school site Parent Teacher Associations (PTA).

Mapping the growth of arts programming within SFUSD and providing a clear picture of current arts offerings, this “Arts Report Status” provides elementary/K-8 school sites a portfolio assessment to support future planning. The report describes course content, provider, length of instruction and funding for each instance of arts instruction offered during the curricular day.

The report does not yet contain information on arts instruction offered to students on an in-kind basis, paid for with grants or other sources. Future elementary school arts profiles will attempt to capture these additional resources.

 

SFUSD Arts Festival Selected Highlights

  • Visual Art exhibition — Artwork by students from San Francisco’s public, private and parochial schools, and community centers will be exhibited in the Resource Center, North Court and Loggia of the Asian Art Museum.

  • Performances — More than 90 student and community choral groups,  orchestras, drama and dance ensembles, jazz bands and concert bands will  perform in Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum.

  • Hands-on Art Activities — Volunteers will offer activities May 1–May 5, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the second floor of the Asian Art Museum.

  • Media Arts — The May 5, 10 a.m., event at the San Francisco Museum of  Modern Art will present short films by young filmmakers.

  • Literary Arts — The 2 p.m., May 7 event, Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum, features young writers reading their poetry and prose works. Keynote speaker is Chinaka Hodge.

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Page updated on 04/28/17