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Administrators of three successful arts-based schools share their insights and practical management strategies:

• Principal Martha Rodriguez-Torres leveraged her approach to arts-based learning to transform the low-performing P.S. 156 into The Waverly School of the Arts, a source of pride and accomplishment for students and parents in a low-income neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.


• Principal Sandra McGary-Ervin oversaw the conversion of 50-year-old Harmony Leland Elementary School in Mableton, Georgia, into a school for the arts — setting high expectations and gaining the support of teachers and parents. As part of its commitment to the arts, the school provides a violin and violin instruction to all 485 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.


• At Smith Renaissance School of the Arts in Denver, Colorado, assistant principal Rory Pullens uses his own experience in the arts to bring a personal touch to the day-to-day management of the school. When the school converted to an arts-based program, approximately 50 percent of the teaching staff transferred to other schools. Those who remained, Pullens says, became the core of today’s committed staff.