Tis the season. Budget season. With all the advocacy campaigns we have launched in recent weeks, I think it's safe to assume that anyone reading this blog has probably taken action on one of our recent campaigns, whether it be for your school district, municipality, or the County.

PTA parent and Arts Ed Advocate Cynthia Willman has authored this Guest Blog outlining her recent meeting with LAUSD board member Yolie Flores organized by a group of parent advocates in LAUSD District 5.

Joint Committee on Arts: The Creative Economy as a Jobs Engine

I have to admit, when we embarked on this process last fall it was hard to imagine that just a few months later, five teams in five school districts would be leading their own advocacy campaigns, and that so many individuals would be taking on leadership and figuring out how they can sustain their arts ed programs and their advocacy efforts into the future.

Thanks to your efforts, the Campaign to retain the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs' TOT allocation was a success.

Principal Stephanie Harris, recently of Short Avenue Elementary School and now assigned to 54th Street Elementary School, presented the following to the LAUSD School Board at the Committee of the Whole on January 19, 2010.

Close your eyes and envision a quality arts education experience. What do you see? 

This is the question posed last week by Steve Seidel from Harvard's Project Zero to the 270 attendees who attended the Arts Education Roundtable at Central High School #9 and hosted by Arts for All. 

At the dawn of a new decade those of us who are working in arts and culture find ourselves in an interesting moment.  

The state fiscal crisis continues to impact cities and school districts throughout our region.  While our individual goals may be to maintain our own organizations' solvency, our collective goal must be to retain the critical infrastructure that has been built over the past ten years, especially in arts education.