The Issaquah School District has over 550 PTSA Volunteer art docents each year providing over 8,500 hours of volunteer instruction at the elementary school level.
The PTSA Art Docent program’s purpose is to support the state’s Visual Arts Grade Level Expectations K – 5, the Common Core, 21st Century Thinking Skills and Habits of Mind while offering students a positive experience with art by exposing them to various materials and artists. They introduce the elements and principles of art, art vocabulary, safety, art criticism, art history and art’s intersection with culture. Students gain essential experience being creative in an open-ended environment.
The PTSA volunteer Art Docents teach four to eight art lessons in each elementary classroom per year. The PTSA at each elementary school funds their program and defines their individual approach to their community.
The Artistic Support program empowers arts education in the Issaquah School District. Funded by the Issaquah Schools Foundation, it supports our Art Docents by providing:
- Training: A monthly docent training with professional instructors, exposing our docents to multiple mediums and providing the opportunity to work through a lesson they can then take back to school and teach.
- Annual Conference: a daylong event where docents can learn new mediums, create examples of lessons, get to know other docents and develop a network of support throughout the district.
- Curriculum (current ongoing project): Designed around a scaffold of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design, this curriculum has been tested by docents, reviewed by teachers and aligned to the Washington State Visual Arts Learning Standards.
- Various projects that affect our docents district wide.
The Art Docent programs fill the gap between what the district funding provides and what our kids require. We truly appreciate the generosity of the principals, class room teachers, and the parents who support our PTAs and in turn the Art Docent program. Thank you so much for being willing to give our kids arts experience. If you are interested in helping to find more solutions to provide arts education in our schools please contact Juliette Ripley-Dunkelberger at Juliette@isfdn.org .
Contacts:
Issaquah PTSA Council 2.6 http://www.issaquahptsa.org/art
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/IssaquahPTSAArtDocents
One Drive Resources: https://1drv.ms/f/s!Amw-rk33n-vGghBZ0F8rEHaJiRPq
Juliette Ripley-Dunkelberger Juliette@isfdn.org
Art Docent Conference – Every autumn.
Art Docent Lessons – http://isfdn.org/art-docent-lessons/
Coordinator:
Laurelle Graves
artdocent@issaquahptsa.org
www.facebook.com/IssaquahPTSAArtDocents
Upcoming Art Docent Training & Events:
(click on an event for details, and event links to websites or fliers for more information)
[eventlist categories=12 limit=6 ]