The art of education

Changing the identity of a school doesn't happen in a day or a week, but downtown Sanders-Clyde Elementary School plans to do as much as possible this year to begin transforming into an arts-infused school.

The genesis of the idea to take the highest poverty school in Charleston County and give it an arts makeover dates back about three years to the tenure of former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson and a partnership she developed with nationally known artist Jonathan Green.

They hatched the idea to give Sanders-Clyde a new arts-related focus that would coincide with the opening of its new building, slated for January 2010.

"I do see this as an opportunity to be at the forefront when people are talking about arts infusion," school Principal Melvin Middleton said. "I think we're really on the cusp of greatness."

The school district hired a consultant, retired fine arts supervisor Barry Goldsmith, who began training teachers in January on how to use the arts to teach math, reading, science and social studies. He organized a two-day workshop on arts infusion before this school year began, and he plans to offer monthly workshops during the school year.

The school has hired full-time art, drama and music teachers who will help push arts integration. The school's small enrollment of about 300 means it could hire only part-time teachers for art and music, but district leaders gave the school special permission this year to hire these teachers to help its transition to arts integration.

Ashley River Creative Arts Elementary School, an arts magnet school serving West Ashley students, will be the model for Sanders-Clyde, but Sanders-Clyde in no way will try to be a carbon copy of Ashley River, Middleton said. Comparing the two schools would be like comparing Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant; people can argue about who's better, but ultimately they're different players with different skills, he said.

Goldsmith agreed.

"These are different teachers and different principals," he said. "They will have different personalities. It's the same concept as Ashley River but the student population is different."

Ashley River had the advantage of opening as a new school 25 years ago and hiring a staff that bought into the arts-infusion concept while Sanders-Clyde has been a traditional neighborhood school for decades.

Middleton told teachers last year that the school planned to become arts-infused and that if they didn't support that, they should find a job elsewhere. None of his teachers decided to leave.

Middleton expects teachers to have an arts-related component in their lessons every day, and he said he'd rather see his teachers try and fail at teaching arts-infused lessons than not try at all.

Some teachers, such as Donna Wooten, couldn't be more excited about using the arts. Wooten, a first-grade teacher who's pursuing a master's degree in arts integration, said she saw last year as an introduction to arts integration and this year as diving head first into it.

"It's going to be a part of who we are," she said. "The arts will be part of everything we do."

The drama, music and arts teachers will collaborate on lesson plans with teachers such as Wooten, who said she hoped to incorporate more movement and music in her teaching.

"There's so much hope and excitement about the new school year," Wooten said.

Middleton acknowledged that becoming an arts-infused school is a process that will take time, but he hopes the change will lead to fewer behavior problems and increase students' enthusiasm and learning.

Goldsmith hopes the school's new direction will provide students with a good education and a solid arts background while making teaching and learning more fun.

"What happens may raise test scores and hopefully it will," he said. "But we're changing kids lives and that's what I'm more interested in. This is a new era for the school."