Creative Arts Charter School
Art Program

Arts Program

CACS teachers and staff provide innovative educational experiences in collaboration with students, utilizing the arts as a vehicle for investigation, problem solving and multi-modal learning. While working in the arts, students are uniquely called upon to envision and set goals, determine methods to reach those goals, re-vision and re-work original ideas, work collaboratively, and develop self-discipline.

CACS believes that education of the whole child should include work in dance, drama, music and visual arts. Everyday at school should involve opportunities to play, invent and discover. As part of a universal, cross-cultural language, the arts represent innate aspects of our common humanity, providing an inherent foundation for communication and a bridge for understanding one another across boundaries of age, race, gender and culture. CACS has placed the arts at the center of its curriculum, and calls on them to provide fundamental purpose, definition and identity to the school.

Students from kindergarten through the 5th grade participate weekly in visual arts, music, and dance / theater classes. Small class sizes (10-15 students as funding permits) assure quality learning experiences. The programs in each of these disciplines are sequenced by grade level in accordance with the State of California's Visual and Performing Arts Teaching Standards.

In grades 6th through 8th, students select a specific art form in the area they wish to emphasize as they prepare to apply to high school. Additionally, they choose an elective arts class, which they attend once a week. CACS offers an assortment of elective classes based upon student interest, which previously has included, drumming, theater improvisation, current art forms (such as Japanese Animation), and "band meets rag-tag-orchestra."

Artists-in-residence work up to 30 hours per week, teaching specific arts disciplines and elective courses to CACS students. Student interns and parents also help staff these classes. The school's Arts Coordinator collaborates with the artists to organize shows and performances, and also to work closely with the classroom teachers to integrate the arts into the regular curriculum. Music, for example, can inspire appreciation of mathematics and physics; likewise, students learn geometry through visual and graphic arts. Thus, students become well versed in a broad range of art media and techniques as they enhance their core competency skills. They also become knowledgeable of the impact and importance of the arts socially, historically and multi-culturally. The CACS arts staff are active and accomplished artists in their respective fields.

Each year, CACS organizes a school-wide performance-art show which features all of the arts classes during two evenings of song, music, dance, theater and visual arts. Additionally, the school stages several smaller performances and art shows throughout the year.