Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition: News and Events - Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition

State Marching Band Competition This Friday/Saturday

10/20/2014

The Colorado state marching band championships are taking place this weekend. Class 1A, 2A, and 3A are Monday at Sports Authority Stadium in Parker. Class 4A & 5A are taking place Friday and Saturday at the Air Force Academy. The competitions are open to spectators. Over half of our Jeffco high schools performed well enough to make it to state this weekend! They include:

Class 2A

D'Evelyn

Class 3A

Conifer
Evergreen
Green Mountain

Class 4A

Dakota Ridge
Pomona

Class 5A

Arvada West
Bear Creek
Chatfield
Columbine
Lakewood
Ralston Valley

In addition, a special mention for Arvada High School under first year director Tucker Ewer for coming within one position of making the class 3A state semi finals.

For more details, see the Colorado Bandmaster's Association web site: http://cbamarching.com/

Sept 18 AMP Webinar: How Marching Band Competitions are Judged

9/15/2014

On September 18, AMP will hold a webinar entitled, "What are Those Judges Looking for Anyway?". Several experts will help demystify how Marching Band competitions are judged. The full description is as follows:

As we get ready for the competitive marching band season, are you one of those parents who wonders “what in the world are those judges looking at and how do they judge these groups?” We will be joined by a panel of expert evaluators and music educators who will explain how the process of adjudicating these competitive events occur. They will explain the subjective nature of marching band competition and share some of the science behind the scores and how they go about determining what to put on paper.

The link to signup is here.

How to Strategically Promote Your School Music Programs

7/28/2014

The National Association of Music Parents has published a good, short article on how to promote and increase participation in your school's music and music booster programs. For a no-nonsense quick 5 minute read on how to approach PR from a strategic perspective, follow this link.

Results of the Bobby G High School Musical Theater Awards

5/30/2014

The Bobby G Awards were held last night. These are the Colorado high school equivalent of the Tony Awards and feed into the National High School Musical Theater Awards. Schools from Jeffco took home 6 awards last night:

Arvada West High School - The Phantom of the Opera

Oustanding Achievement in Musical Direction: Chris Maunu & Craig Melhorn

Evergreen High School - Fiddler on the Roof

Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Design: Shaye Evans, Ryan Kleist, Colin Riebel, & Dillon Riebel

Lakewood High School - Young Frankenstein

Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Lizzie Plender (Frau Blucher)
Outstanding Achievement in Direction: Tami LoSasso & Delaney Bohlen
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Conner Kingsley (Igor)

Pomona High School - Damn Yankees

Outstanding Special Achievement Award: Destiny Humrich

In addition, there were several other nominations for Jeffco schools (see previous blog posts). Congratulations to all the winners - the awards were well deserved. Keep supporting the students and teachers who work so hard to create such amazing productions!

May 28 "Going Into Summer" Newsletter

5/28/2014

In This Edition:

Today's meeting with Dan McMinimee, Jeffco's upcoming superintendent
New website content
May 20th meeting with Ken Witt and John Newkirk
What we need help with
Going into summer

Meeting With Dan McMinimee
This afternoon, two members of the Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition had coffee with Dan McMinimee, the upcoming superintendent of Jeffco Public Schools. We discussed Performing Arts in Jeffco as well as Dan's background in both Douglas County and the Salem-Keizer Public School District in Oregon.

Dan wanted to be very clear that he feels music is critical to education. He stated that it is equal in importance to other subjects, including STEM subjects. We discussed topics such as equity of access to Performing Arts across schools/demographics, teacher pay (many districts pay music teachers less than their STEM counterparts), cost challenges around instrument repair/replacement, and what roles JPAAC can play.

We found Dan to be very engaging, not just showing up and saying the right words, but also asking questions and suggesting possible avenues towards solutions to some of our challenges. He was also very clear that he appreciated the parents' involvement in an organization like this and specifically asked us to stay engaged with him directly. He is very interested in having a town hall meeting with our group in the future.

New Website Content
One of the things we would like to be to the community is a resource for information. Today, if you have a question about advocacy, research, or local, state, or national organizations, the process of finding answers can be difficult. If you don't know where to start, it's tough. One of our unwritten goals is to make that easier through our website. To that end, we have added a considerable amount of new content in the past week:

Multimedia: We have added samples of great Jeffco school performances, a recording of our May 20 meeting with Ken Witt and John Newkirk, a sample of the impact of music on a child's life, the webcast of the SupportMusic coalition 2014 national meeting, and notes from the May 22 AMP webinar "All Politics is Local".
Research: We added new research from major studies, compared across decades, regarding the state of arts education in public schools. These studies were commissioned by congress and performed by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Helpful links to organizations: We have added many more links to local, state, and national Performing Arts advocacy organizations, along with descriptions of what these organizations can provide to people interested in advocacy.
Links to more booster organizations in Jeffco. We would ultimately like to have a link to every booster organization so parents can share best practices. We are considering trying to get all booster presidents together for a half day to talk about successes, failures, and to share ideas. Let us know if you would be interested.

We continuously add content to the site, but we need your help. If you come across research, organizations, webcasts, performances, or booster links, please share those with us at jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com so we can post and share for the benefit of all community members.

May 20 Meeting With Ken Witt and John Newkirk
Thanks to all who turned out for this meeting. Although we did not have as many attendees as we had hoped, we did fill the room and had a great Q&A session talking about everything from 3A funding to teacher pay to instrument replacement, to equity of accessibility across schools - and many more subjects. With their permission, we video recorded and posted the entire meeting here. It is split into 5 sections, with descriptions, for ease of viewing. (If the link does not work for you, it's under "Multimedia/Meetings" from the banner menu.)

What we Need Help With
We still need help in a few areas:

Non-profit legal advice - whether it's you or someone you know, we could use some legal help. They don't even have to live in the district! We simply need an attorney who can spare a little time to help guide us on the nuances of becoming a non-profit. If you know of someone who may be able to help us, please reach out to them and let us know.
We are looking for another leadership team member. If you can help in your spare time and are willing to share your ideas on how we can best serve the Jeffco community, we could use your help!
Send us content! It takes a lot of time to research content. We have many hundreds of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and email. You can be the greatest source of content as you read stories in the news, interact with your booster organizations, and work with your music teachers. Think of us when you come across something and send it to jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com.

Going Into Summer
We are all volunteers. As we go into summer, expect to hear a bit less from us for the next few months. We are going to have a leadership planning meeting next week, and then many of us will be heading off on vacations at various points during the summer. Because of that, our newsletter frequency will likely slow down and our Facebook postings will not be as often. Be aware, though, that we haven't gone anywhere! We have some great ideas for next year:

The Board of Education has asked us to pull together the top challenges facing Performing Arts in Jeffco. We will be working on this to present to the board in the near future.

We have discussed with the board the significant cost issues around instrument repair and replacement and are working on an approach for this as input to the 2015-2016 budget process, which will kick off in a few months.

We have discussed a number of ideas around how to work with booster organizations to help raise money for instruments and will continue to discuss feasibility and how to plan for that.

Enjoy the summer,

Kent Micho
President, Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition

Significant Updates to Website Content

5/26/2014

Over the last few days, we have added significant content to the web site. Specifically, we have added:

Multimedia content: We have added several Jeffco school performances, video our our May 20 meeting with Ken Witt and John Newkirk, and a video about the impact of music on a child's life. We've also added a link to the webcast of the 2014 Support Music Coalition which features several major acts, discussions on the health of music in public education, and discussions with numerous political, celebrity, and advocacy people working at state, local, and federal levels. Lastly, we've uploaded notes from The Association of Music Parents May 22, 2014 webcast entitled "All politics is local".
Links to additional research available from The National Center for Education Statistics.
Links to many additional local, state, and national associations advocating for Performing Arts and providing resources and information for people interested in advocacy.
Links to additional music booster organizations for various Jeffco Public Schools.

We would like to continue to add more content in all of the above areas. If you have additional information we can publish, please send it to us at jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com or click the mail link above.

May 20th Meeting With Jeffco Board of Education Members

5/14/2014

Our next general meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 20 at 6:30pm. The location will be the Community Room at the Arvada Police Department West Woods community station located at 6644 Kendrick Dr., Arvada, CO 80007. (Please note that this is a change of location from the original announcement.)

Our guest speakers will be Mr. Ken Witt and Mr. John Newkirk, two members of the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education. They will be presenting and discussing their views on the importance of Performing Arts as a part of a well rounded education. We will follow their presentations with a Q&A session. John is a musician and both played when they were in school. They are very excited about speaking with our group.

While this venue is larger than what we had previously, we still only have room for around 40 people, so please come early to get a seat.

May 2014 Newsletter

5/14/2014

In This Edition

What we've been up to
May 20th public meeting with Jeffco Board of Education members to discuss the importance of Performing Arts within Jeffco Public Schools
Upcoming AMP webinar
Get the word out/We Need You!
Request for Information
In what areas would you like to see us focus?

What We've Been Up To
Over the past few months, the Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition has been quite busy. We have spent a lot of energy on growth and ensuring our public presence is easily accessible. We created our new web site onto which we continuously add new content. We have focused on news and events, research & data, and links to both local and national groups of interest. We have even made it mobile enabled! We created a Facebook page for those who like to stay informed via Facebook and we post there every few days. We added a Twitter account for those who prefer to follow via Twitter. Finally, we updated our back end e-mail list signup process. All of this has taken a very large amount of our time.

At the same time, we have been working to grow membership and to build important relationships. We have spoken at Board of Education meetings, we have interviewed Jeffco Board of Education Members, (profiles are on the web site under the "Helpful Links" section), and we have begun dialog with organizations such as the Colorado Music Educators Association and the Colorado Department of Education. There is a long journey ahead to make all the necessary connections to enable strong advocacy. If you have contacts which would be helpful, please let us know.

May 20th Meeting With Jeffco Board of Education Members
We are pleased to announce our next general meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 20 at 6:30pm. The location will be the Community Room at the Arvada Police Department West Woods community station located at 6644 Kendrick Dr., Arvada, CO 80007. (Please note that this is a change of location from the original announcement.)

Our guest speakers will be Mr. Ken Witt and Mr. John Newkirk, two members of the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education. They will be presenting and discussing their views on the importance of Performing Arts as a part of a well rounded education. We will follow their presentations with a Q&A session. John is a musician and both played when they were in school. They are very excited about speaking with our group.

In addition, we will present information about what this organization has been up to for the last couple of months and solicit your input about areas in which you would like to see the organization focus.

While this venue is larger than what we had previously, we still only have room for around 40 people, so please come early to get a seat.

Upcoming AMP webinar
The Association of Music Parents May 22 Webinar is entitled, "All Politics is Local - How Parents Play a Part in Their Community". This is all about positively advocating for the importance of Performing Arts at the local level. For more details, see the "News and Events" section of our web page.

Get the Word Out/We Need You!
We need your help to continue to spread the word of the good work this organization is doing on behalf of our kids. While people who receive this newsletter and people following us on both Facebook and Twitter have been growing, most of that has been in the North Jeffco area and mostly at the high school level. We need your help to pass this newsletter and our contact information below on to others. In addition, if you would like one of our board members to show up and speak with your organization or parent group, contact us at our e-mail address below.

We need you! We still need a couple more volunteers to help lead the organization. Time commitments are minimal. If you have an interest in helping, please reach us at our e-mail address below.

Request for Information
We are always on the lookout for good information to include on the web site. Whether it is good research and data, links to relevant community organizations, or links to Jeffco music booster clubs, we want to get it posted. Please send us anything you have which would be beneficial to others.

In What Areas Would You Like to See us Focus?
As we look forward to the next school year, we need to start planning. That planning starts with you, our stakeholders. What would you like to see the organization focus on with respect to Performing Arts Advocacy. Send us your thoughts at jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com.

Remember, it's all about the students,

Kent Micho
President, Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition
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Our Contact Information:

Website: http://www.jeffcopaadvocacy.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jeffcopaadvocacy
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jeffcopaadvocac (no "y" at the end)
Email: jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com

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If you didn't receive this e-mail directly from us, go here to stay informed or to volunteer:
http://www.jeffcopaadvocacy.org/stay-informed-or-volunteer.html

May 22 AMP Webinar: All Politics is Local - How Parents Play a Part in their Community!

5/12/2014

The description of the webinar is: Mark Despotakis and Christopher Woodside will provide information on what can be done by parents in your own communities with your school boards and legislature to impact the decisions that are made on behalf of your kids. Information will also be shared from the Music Education Policy Roundtable, of which AMP is a member, on the 2014 Federal Legislative agenda, including maintaining the status of the arts as a CORE ACADEMIC SUBJECT in any reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). A link to signup is here.

4 Jeffco High Schools Nominated for Bobby G Awards!

5/9/2014

The Bobby G awards nominations were posted this morning on the DCPA Bobby G awards site. Congratulations to Jeffco Public Schools High Schools: Arvada West, Evergreen, Lakewood, and Pomona for receiving nominations for their musicals. The effort of the teachers, students, and parents involved is yet another example of how important the Performing Arts are to our students. Click the link above and then click on "2014 Nominees" on the right side for the entire list. Awards will be given May 29.

Location change and additional speaker for May 20 general meeting

5/7/2014

We are pleased to announce that in addition to having Mr. Ken Witt and Mr. John Newkirk from the Jeffco Board of Education as speakers on the importance of Performing Arts in education, we will also have the President of the Colorado Music Educators Association, Mr. Mark Hudson, to speak about music as a part of the core curriculum at the state level. This will give us a good perspective of both the state and county levels and trends in curriculum.

In addition, the location of the meeting has changed. We have obtained a slightly larger venue. We will now be meeting at the City of Arvada's community room located in the West Woods Community Police Station. This will give us slightly more capacity, around 50 total people, and a better setup for this meeting.

The address is 6644 Kendrick Dr., Arvada, CO 80007. To get there, take I-70 to Ward Rd. Exit and go north to 64th. Make a left on 64th and go a couple of miles to Kendrick Dr. Make a right on Kendrick and the building will be on the right.

The meeting will commence promptly at 6:30. Even though the venue is slightly larger, we are capacity constrained. Come early to get a seat! (and if you have suggestions for larger venues in the future, please email us using the link in the upper right of the header)

Public hearings June 5 & June 19 on the proposed Jeffco budget for 2014-15

5/6/2014

Public hearings on the proposed 2014-15 district budget will be held on Thursday, June 5 at 6:30 p.m. and Thursday, June 19 at 5:30 p.m. in the 5th floor Board Room of the Education Center. (Note that June 19 is the budget adoption meeting) Members of the Jefferson County Board of Education have given preliminary direction for the district’s 2014-15 budget. The budget process began with board members identifying their ends or goals which are focused on student achievement. See the draft budget highlights here: http://jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/communications/key/2014/May/2014.05.07_pg2.html

Multiple Jeffco High Schools Vying for Bobby G Theater Awards

5/5/2014

The Bobby G awards are put on by The Denver Center for the Performing Arts. These awards are for outstanding theater productions or individual performances and include award categories for overall production, direction, individual performances, orchestra, and many other categories. Schools have already submitted for the awards. On May 9, the list of schools nominated for awards will be put on the website. Awards will be given on May 29 at an awards ceremony. The Bobby G awards are open to high schools in the 7 county metro area and are a regional feeder for the National High School Musical Theater Awards. The winners of the Bobby G's will represent our region in the national awards.

For more information, here is the Bobby G website: http://www.denvercenter.org/Libraries/BobbyG/index.sflb.ashx
For a list of participating schools: https://www.denvercenter.org/Libraries/BobbyG/2014-Bobby-G-Participating-Schools.sflb.ashx
For the National High School Musical Theater Awards: http://www.nhsmta.com/

Another great reason we need strong Performing Arts in our Jeffco Schools!

Next general meeting to be held Tuesday, May 20 @ 6:30pm

4/25/2014

We are pleased to announce our next general meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 20 at 6:30pm. The location will be the Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church at 920 Kipling Street, Lakewood, CO 80215.

Our special guests will be Mr. Ken Witt and Mr. John Newkirk, two of the members of the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education. They will be presenting and discussing their views on the importance of Performing Arts as a part of a well rounded education. We will follow their presentations with a Q&A session. Both Ken and John are musicians, played when they were in school, and are very enthusiastic about speaking with our group.

In addition, we will present information about what the JPAAC has been up to since the last meeting, and solicit your input about areas in which you would like to see the organization focus.

Mark your calendars and tell your friends with an interest in Performing Arts. "Like" us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter (see top right of the web page for links), and sign up for our email/volunteer list here. As always, if you have any questions, we can be reached at jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com or click the email icon on the top right of our web page.

April 23 Webinar: Social Media for Music Parents

4/13/2014

On April 23 from 7:00 - 8:00pm MT, The National Association of Music Parents will be holding a Webinar to discuss how parents and teachers of music students can best use social media for communication, marketing, and planning. The description of the event is:

"Every arts organization has some access to the world of social media effectively changing arts activities, marketing management and strategic planning. While Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, blogging and the like may be overwhelming, managing your social media effort can be easy and effective. At the end of the day social media activities are just another method of communication; another way to tell your arts story in your own way. While we are all finding the most appropriate ways to utilize this medium, there are certain standards that should be followed in order to accomplish the goals set forth by your organization."

Signup for the webinar is here. You must be a member of AMP to attend the webinar. Signup also gives you access to all of AMP's resources. (At the time of this posting, individual yearly memberships are $12/person.)

How you can advocate for Performing Arts right now in 30 mins or less!

4/9/2014

On June 19, the Jeffco Public Schools Board of Education will be adopting the budget for the 2014-2015 school year. Between now and then, the easiest thing you can do to advocate for Performing Arts is to write letters to the board members. By extension, you can also call each board member and even ask to meet with them. Contact information for each board member is located here.

We believe there are some key elements which can be a part of each letter to make it very personal and effective:

Make it personal. Who you are, how your child is involved in Performing Arts, what it means to you, and why you care. If you are a member of an organization, such as a church which relies on students for music programs, you can state that as well. It broadens the impact of your letter.
Be respectful. Remember, you get more bees with honey than with vinegar. You would want the same in return and they are more likely to read the entire letter.
State what you expect. For example, you might expect that funding for Board of Education priorities will NOT be taken from existing Performing Arts programs and that Performing Arts programs funding at all levels will be maintained and/or grown.
Use facts and figures if you have them. For example, "Studies show that when instrumental music programs are unfunded and removed at the Elementary School level, within 2 years, music enrollment in middle schools drops by 65% and this follows through with the same 65% drop in enrollment at the high school level."
If you don't have specific facts and figures, appeal to the heart and/or state things known to be factual, even if you don't have exact data. Some examples are: 1) Kids involved in performing arts on average perform better on standardized tests, have higher average grades, have higher graduation rates, and are better prepared for a career or post secondary education. (These statements happen to also touch on the Board's stated "Ends Policies" or goals for Jeffco.) 2) The average Performing Arts teacher has a higher student load (also known as Student to Faculty Ratio or "SFR") than does the average teacher, meaning that economically, they allow administrators more flexibility to fund programs which may require a lower SFR and couldn't otherwise be afforded.
Mention how many people care. You can talk about your circle of friends, organizations you are involved in, and/or reference the Jeffco Schools February budget survey where 13,000 people responded with support for electives being the #1 priority.
Always be factual.

JPAAC is working to gather more facts and figures so they can be posted on our "Research and Data" page for your use. You can also go on the web and find unique research and data content for a letter. If you do find something of interest, we'd appreciated you sharing it with us at jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com so we can post it on our site for the benefit of everyone.

General meeting for all interested people to be held in late May

4/7/2014

We are planning to hold a general meeting for all individuals who are interested in the organization and what we are doing. We have not yet set a final date, but we are looking at late May just before the school year is over and before the budget is finalized for Jeffco Public Schools for next year. Once we set the date, it will be announced here, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition Speaks to the Jeffco School Board on behalf of all students

4/3/2014

On April 3, the Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition performed its first small step of advocacy by speaking to the Jeffco School board on the importance of Performing Arts in our schools, the funding commitments of 3A, and specifically, our request to continue to fund elementary school music as outlined within 3A. Thank you to our parent, Susie Spiegler, for speaking on behalf of our students. The recording of the board meeting, along with the speech, can be found here when posted: http://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/board/minutes.html. Our speech can be heard in part 2 of 4 at 2:25:00.