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Charter | Section 10 | Curriculum
06/05/09 00:47 , Categories: SPA Charter CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
1. Purpose
The Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts seeks to instill in its students the life skills of creativity, confidence, collaboration, communication and leadership. We will encourage self-expression, nurture self-esteem, and challenge the imagination. The school will provide students with the opportunity to learn from the finest performers and educators in their fields. where theThe quality of the creative effort at SLSPA will fosters confidence, joy, self-discipline, and a deep, abiding love of excellence and high achievement.
SLSPA is being created from a realization that education with a focus on the arts can enhance learning. Both national and local educators agree that arts education is a stimulant for academic achievement as well as training for artists and the development of cultural appreciation. By focusing on the arts, our students and staff will generate a lively, happy, and successful community in which they the students will have the opportunity to thrive academically and socially.
Gifted young performers will be provided highly specialized and rigorous training in the arts while still focusing on important academic achievement. To learn, to sing, to dance, to play, to act…these are the aspirations of our young performers.
Some students need to discover success in a different way than those provided by traditional, competitive and large high schools. There will be an overall desire within the school to see each and every one of our students unlock their gifts and talents so as to become the best people they can be despite the growing pressures and difficulties they face on their journeys through adolescence. SLSPA will offer unique performing arts curriculum focused on the individual. The school will nurture, without exception, the values of individual accomplishment and independence. Since individual creativity is integral to the production of art, our faculty and staff will work with students on an individualized, human level that stimulates intellectual, artistic, and technical originality. By providing such an environment, we will strive to graduate young people who can work independently and creatively.
The programs of the school will be designed for motivated students who desire the most from their efforts in the performing arts and in the classroom. Whether the choice is to make a career of their art or merely to participate in it briefly is of no importance. We desire to create a positive learning and performing experience for all students, and to provide the knowledge and inspiration to take their art to the next level.
2. Curriculum
The following outlines the course offerings for the school:
COLLABORATIVE CURRICULUM BREAKDOWNCollaborative Curriculum Breakdown | Basic PremisesBASIC PREMISES
1. SPA students would be (on average) 3/8 at SPA and 5/8 at HH.
2. As many HH students as possible would will have the opportunity to take specialized, advanced courses in the arts at SPA.
3. SPA students would complete their 1.5 “fine arts core” classes at Highland.
4. All SPA classes would will be for elective credit to ensure them SPA the freedom to hire non-certified, working practitioners in the arts, to teach their specialized classes.
5. The course offerings for HH and SPA would will be cross-listed at each institution.
*= Course to be added after first year
SPECIFIED GRADUATION CREDITS
FAC=Fine Arts Credit (1.5) ATC=Applied Tech Credit (1.0)
SSC=Social Studies Credit (2.5) LAC=Language Arts Credit (3.0)
CTC=Computer Tech Credit (0.5) MAC=Mathematics Credit (2.0)
PEC=Physical Ed. Credit (2.0) FLC=Financial Lit. Credit (0.5)
SCC=Science Credit (2.0)
TOTAL CREDITS: 15.0 ELECTIVE CREDITS: 9.0
EXTRA CORE 1.5 CREDITS (1/3 of the extra 4.0 w/8 periods) if not early grad. In Math, Language Arts, World Languages, Science, Social Studies
TO GRADUATE: 24.0 Credits (Average of 4.0 specified credits per year.) [Comment 1]
KEYS TO MAXIMIZING SPA STUDENT TIME AT SPA:3. Keys to Maximizing SPA Student Time at SPA
1. Getting students to commit to staying for four years.
2. Early morning seminary (could free up 4.0 credits over four years0)
3. Summer intensive academic classes.
4. Apply for academic core credit for certain SPA courses, most likely possibilities:
A. Theatre History, Music History, or Humanities
For Social Studies Credit: Geography for Life (0.5) or World Civ. (0.5), Or at least the 1.5 Extra Core.
B. Dance Classes (teacher must have dance and/or PE endorsement)
For PE Credit: fitness for Life (0.5), Individual Lifetime Activities (0.5)
C. Dramatic Literature, Playwriting for Language Arts Credit: Or at least the 1.5 Extra Core.
D. Offer a Financial Literacy course for SPA students (flexible certification) with an emphasis in arts management and grant-writing (saves 0.5)
E. Cover computer literacy in a technology-based SPA class and facilitate the state-approved competency exam (saves 0.5)
5. Note that 1.5 Specified Credits is Fine Arts Core, fulfilled at HH.
Students need to get an average of 4 core classes per year, plus pass the computer lit test. [Comment 1]
RECOMMENDED BASIC COURSE LOAD FOR SPA STUDENTS4. Recommended Basic Course Load for SPA Students:
4.0 Academic Core Classes at Highland.
2.0 Arts Classes within a Specialty Area (could be individualized) at SPA.
1.0 Arts Class outside the Specialty Area at SPA or Arts Class at Highland.
1.0 Open Elective for Seminary, foreign languageLang, Driver’s Ed, HH Arts, or more.SPA
2 comments
Specifically, section 1: purpose is generally ok, just a tad "over the top."
Section 2: curriculum. There was one provision that Paul inisted on in the early creation of SPA: that SPA students would take their 1.5 fine arts core credits at Highland so as to maintain enrollment in Highland's arts classes. I believe over the three years that there has not been a drain on the Highland arts classes and so that concern is not there anymore. Within a year, the district personel in charge of verifying credit determined that it was too difficult to delineate between fine arts classes taken at SPA and fine arts classes taken at Highland, and so this provision couldn't be maintained even if HH and SPA both agreed to it. Therefore #3 under 2.Curriculum is redundant and should be eliminated.
As for #4 in that same section, there was speculation that many of the SPA teachers would not have regular certification and would be able to teach elective fine arts credit but not state fine arts core credit. With the USOE alternatives for licensure that have emerged since that time (or were simply not understood when the charter was drafted) those distinctions are not relevant and therefore #4 under 2. Curriculum should also be eliminated.
Everything beyond #5 under 2. curriculum should also be deleted. It was not intended as a policy statement but merely as considerations as the founders were trying to envision what this new model of a school was going to look like and what a student schedule would look like. I think the essential thing to state in this section is that SPA students enroll in 3 at least classes at SPA and the rest either at Highland or though alternative credit opportunities such as summer school and on-line studies. We might also want to add "the SPA counselor will work with students to ensure that their high school coursework qualifies them not only for graduation but also for colleges, universities, and arts schools in which they would be most likely to enroll." The reason I would add this is specifically the concern for 2 years of foreign language- not a high school graduation requirement but one that is required by the U, and so students need to know that they need to find a way to fit that in if they are intending to apply at the U or a number of other nearby universities.
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