Visual and Performing Arts Program Overview
Suzanne McCulloch
Coordinator, Visual and Performing Arts
Phone: (510) 644-8772
The Arts in Berkeley Unified School District
The district-wide Music Program provides music literacy (singing, rhythm, recorder) once a week to all third grade students and twice a week to all fourth grade students. Fifth grade student choose between band, orchestra and chorus. Seven of the eleven K-5 schools provide Music for first and second graders and four schools include kindergarten students. For grades six through twelve, Music may be selected as an elective class. Six elementary schools have a Visual Arts teacher and five schools have Dance and Theater specialists providing weekly classes. Student productions and participation in the District Arts Festival are on all school calendars.
Dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts have endured in all cultures throughout the ages as a universal basic language. The arts convey knowledge and meaning not learned through the study of other subjects. Study in and through the arts employs a form of thinking and a way of knowing based on human judgment, invention, and imagination. Arts education offers students the opportunity to envision, set goals, determine a method to reach a goal and try it out, identify alternatives, evaluate, revise, solve problems, imagine, work collaboratively, and apply self-discipline. As they study and create in the arts, students use the potential of the human mind to its full and unique capacity. The visual and performing arts are a vital part of a well-rounded educational program for all students.
2007-2008 BUSD Concert Schedule