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.
