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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.
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