The arts are making a comeback in Detroit's public schools

On one side of Karana Hales' art classroom at Mann Learning Community, a group of kindergartners was mixing paint — taking globs of yellow and blue paint, swirling them together and making green.

On the other side, another group of students took plain white paper, grabbed shapes like dinosaurs and butterflies, then traced them onto the paper — coloring them in with crayons to make their own unique designs.

What's remarkable about this scene is that it even exists. Until this school year, Mann hadn't had an art classroom or teacher for years. In fact, the most seasoned teacher there can't recall art classes at the west-side Detroit school for the last 20 years.

Mann isn't an anomaly. Instead, it's the norm in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Just 24% of the schools in the district have an art class; 27% have a music class. Only 18% have both.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti is determined to change that.

"We have to think about art and music the same way we think about math and reading," said Vitti, who became the district's superintendent in May.

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Call it a comeback, or a resurgence. But the district is working to restore the arts. It's happened in small ways, as principals like Georgina Tait — who leads Mann — find ways in their school budgets to afford art teachers. And it's happening after years of financial and academic turmoil — while the district was mostly under state control — that resulted in cuts to arts and music classes and a narrow focus on subjects such as reading and math.

Instead of having pockets of schools teaching the arts, Vitti wants to create equity and access to art and music programs in every school in the district. Here's how the district plans to do it:

Beginning in the 2018-19 school year, every K-5 school in the district will have either an art or a music class — a $3-million expense that will require some restructuring of the budget. It'll cost an additional $2 million in one-time costs for equipment and training, Vitti said. The eventual goal, he said, is to ensure all schools have both art and music, but that may take some time.

In the spring, a district partnership with the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Michigan Opera Theatre to create a Cultural Passport program will launch with the goal being exposing students from pre-kindergarten to grade 5 to an exploration of the city's rich, cultural opportunities.

The district is working to establish more natural feeder patterns for students to transition from some of the arts-focused elementary/middle schools to Detroit School of the Arts, the only high school devoted to the arts.

Overall, the idea is to demonstrate that every kid has an aptitude for the arts.

"It's there. It just needs to be tapped and honed," Vitti said.

Hales, in her seventh year as a teacher and first in the district, understands that. She grew up attending schools in the district, back when there were plenty of art programs and she had teachers who inspired her to pursue the arts.

"It made me really want to come to school every day," Hales said.

That's why she and others appreciate the district's new focus on the arts.

"It's very important to know you have the support," said Larry Lambert, an art teacher at Duke Ellington Conservatory of Music and Arts at Beckham Academy. "All of our students won't academically engage through just the core curriculum. It might be an arts project or an art teacher that invigorates them."

We have a lot of work to do

When Vitti was interviewing for the superintendent's job last spring, he heard often from the school board members who are now his bosses that they want the district to focus on the "whole child," and that includes elevating arts to the same stature as reading, math, science and social studies — subjects usually considered the core curriculum.

Those are the subjects tested on high-stakes standardized exams, and the consequences that come with poor performance — combined with financial strains —have placed an intense focus on them and squeezed out the arts.

It's a shortsighted focus, arts advocates often say, because they believe exposure to the arts helps students succeed in those other subjects.

"When students participate in art and music, they develop critical thinking skills. It develops natural creativity," Vitti said.

The emergency managers who controlled the district for about eight years "were thinking about financial and fiscal integrity all the time," said Deborah Hunter Harvill, a board member who chairs the board's academics and curriculum subcommittee. Vitti, though, is thinking even broader, she said.

"Nikolai is thinking about the whole child approach," Hunter Harvill said.

It's something Vitti was known for in Jacksonville, Fla., where he was superintendent of the Duval County Public Schools. In 2014, he was named Superintendent of the Year by the Florida Art Education Association. He received the same honor in 2016 from the Florida Music Education Association.

Both organizations cited Vitti's work in restoring arts programs in Jacksonville schools. The honors, Vitti said, are among the highlights of his career.

"We have a lot of work to do," said Hunter Harvill, a former school principal. "But he’s patient. He’s going to make it happen."

Teaching kids to create

Mann's art classroom is tucked away on the second floor of the building. Last year, it served as a second-grade classroom. But when Georgina Tait took on the job as principal over the summer, she was determined to find space — and the budget — for an art teacher.

"Having art has been awesome for the kids," Tait said. "Children like to express themselves in different ways and art gives them the ability to do that, especially for those visual types."

Take Iyonna Dinkins. The kindergartner was part of the group in Hales class that was instructed to create designs using shapes and white paper. Some of the kids used just one shape. Not Iyonna.

She traced the dinosaur. The butterfly. The frog. And the large leaf. Each one was drawn on top of the other one. Then she used multiple crayons — brown, pink, yellow — to color in the shapes.

"I like drawing," the 5-year-old told a classroom visitor.

Hales teaches the kids about art history, the basics of art and she helps them understand concepts such as "value" in art — the degree of light to dark — and how to show distance. On one wall, there's a recap of everything the kids have learned so far.

"I can practice mixing colors," it says for kindergarten. "I can practice gluing and cutting skills. I can make an image of a robot," it says for first grade. For second grade: "I can practice painting skills. I can understand value."

Hales also teaches the kids how to create.

"They're learning how to take something from nothing — a blank sheet of paper maybe, and make something new. For a kid, that can lead to almost anything in life," Hales said.

Music is part of district's plan

If there's a model for how schools can approach the arts — particularly for elementary and middle school students — it's on the city's east side at Duke Ellington. The school has a focus on the fine and performing arts, offering students an array of classes in the visual arts, vocal arts, music and dance.

Walk through the cafeteria, through the gym and down a winding hallway of this large building and you'll find one of its performing arts gems — a music classroom where DSO musicians Leslie DeShazor and Ashley Nelson, along with the school's instrumental teacher Sean Patton, were on a recent day walking a group of intensely focused third-graders through some very difficult notes on the violin.

"It's going to take a minute for us to get this," DeShazor told the students at one point as they struggled to get the notes just right. "Just be patient."

The DSO artists travel to Duke Ellington several times a week for these lessons. The school has had a partnership with the DSO for years, and students have learned to play instruments for years, but this is the first year for the strings class, principal Rita Davis said.

"The children are well-motivated," Davis said. "They want to know a craft. They know it’s a wonderful opportunity."

Not every school is going to have the expansive arts programs, but Vitti sees it as an example of a place leaders and teachers at other schools can go to learn best practices. Here, the arts isn't just about perfecting a dance or hitting the right note on the violin, a lesson that other schools can take note of.

"I believe other schools can learn how to utilize the arts to enrich and embellish the academic program," Davis said.

Every day at Duke Ellington, the arts teachers do a reading activity with their students. And what's important here is those who teach in the arts often complement their lessons based on what students are learning in their other classes.

On a recent day, that meant Lambert — the art teacher — was working with his second-grade students, who, in the regular classroom, were learning about gratitude, to make posters and greeting cards for residents of a local nursing home.

The idea actually came from Khylie Lewis, 7, whose mother works in a nursing home.

"I want the people in the nursing home to get better," she said. The student-made cards, "will make them feel happy."

To Khylie, art is a fun subject because "we get to draw, we get to paint, we get to color."

Without it, she said, school "wouldn't be fun at all."

Davis, who previously was the principal at the DSA, is a big believer in the arts.

"Not only will it excite a child to come to school, it gives them a discipline for learning. And it teaches them how to be competitive, artistic and ... it helps them to realize their dreams."

Field trips will help kids explore

Beginning in the spring, DPSCD will begin the Cultural Passport program, which is similar to a program Vitti brought to his previous district that seeks to expose students to cultural institutions in the city, including the DIA, the DSO and the Michigan Opera Theatre.

The DIA this spring, for instance, "will be hosting field trips for all of their third-grade classrooms to expose them to our collection," said Teri John, the museum's director of education programs.

The partnership will expand for the 2018-19 school year and will mean every student in grades K-5 will visit at least three institutions each year, Vitti said. It will also mean more partners will get involved, including the Music Hall Center for Performing Arts.

The DIA each year hosts about 70,000 children via field trips. The trips, including transportation, are free for schools located in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties — thanks to a millage that provides a chunk of operating revenue.

A small fraction of those students — about 4,000 — are enrolled in DPSCD, John said.

"The museum is a cultural gem in the city and not all students have come on field trips," John said. "Our hope is that if we can engage all third-grade classrooms, then those kids as they grow up can see the museum as a place they want to come and visit and revisit as adults. And they'll bring their families."

She said she imagines her counterparts at other cultural institutions would feel the same.

"We want kids exposed to the rich cultural heritage of this city," John said.

Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651, lhiggins@freepress.com or @LoriAHiggins