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Home > Programs > Cleveland > Advocate Profile
An Interview with Tony Sias, Executive Director of Arts Education, Cleveland Metropolitan School District
Why is there a focus on third-graders for the initiative?
We focus on third-graders because this would be driving our overall initiative to close the achievement gap by the third grade. And so this initiative would support that goal of closing the achievement gap and it will ready students for the proficiency test. It will be contributing to, hopefully, a positive outcome of students taking the proficiency in the third grade. Listen
Can you talk a little bit about specific programs within the initiative that you’re doing with the third graders?
A series of lesson plans and units were developed in partnership with arts teachers, non-arts teachers and community teaching artists. These initiatives were piloted last year. And our goal this year is to take those lesson plans and then roll them out to all third grades district-wide. Listen
How do you involve parents when thinking about designing this initiative?
It’s through programs and activities that engage.
This may sound backwards, But sometimes, I’ve found when working with parents, it’s at the culminating event that it all becomes their glue to all the pieces and parts of the things the students have done for that particular semester. When these things are consistent and sustained from year to year, that parent then is more involved because he or she has seen the outcome and then can get a better understanding, or have a deeper interest in the process. Listen
How is success determined by the school district (success of programs taking effect in the schools)?
One benchmark for success is to rollout these lessons to all third grades this year and if we are able to actualize 85% of our goal, I think that truly demonstrates success. I think we’ve already found some success from the results from the pilot. We found that there was a 19% increase in visual arts proficiency and 24% average increase in language arts. Now, of course, this was a curriculum-specific assessment based on the particular unit that was taught, but those are some really good numbers to talk about. And I think equally as important in this initiative is about learning in the arts in addition to other subject areas. And I think that when we can then begin to see some additional outcomes coupled with arts that will be a benchmark in determining what level of success we are having. Listen
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