Parents, community get creative after cuts at St. Paul school leave students without arts, music programs
Low enrollment at Chelsea Heights Elementary School has impacted funding for music and arts programs, leaving staff to figure out how they will still deliver creative classes for students.
"Enrollment went down, that is one of the pieces that decide allocation for how many classroom teachers," Chelsea Heights Principal Guillermo Maldonado Pèrez said.
Last year, the school had to let go of their music and arts teachers and, alongside them, their programs.
"When we heard the news that not having the allocations for music and arts was hard," Maldonado Pèrez said.
The loss weighed heavily on many of the staff, but there was still hope for bringing the students art and music programs, albeit in a different way. Teachers, staff and parents of the Parent Teacher Organization came together to create an art committee.
"Losing one art was a hit, but losing both was pretty devastating, so our PTO and community has stepped up tremendously to help us," Maldonado Pèrez said. "We came up with the idea of creating a committee, an arts committee, with teachers and parents. So we can collaborate, brainstorm ideas — how much it's going to be, who's going to reach out to these people? This is how we can supplement the students."
The school has reached out to volunteers to give students creative outlets. One of those volunteers reached out to the school to create a mural with the help of the second-grade students.
"The fact she was going to create a mural for these students and asked the kids if you were someone coming to this school what would you want to see," second-grade teacher Carrie Cannon said. "The kids talked a lot about feeling welcome there and feeling like we belong here."
The mural depicts three BIPOC children, with a banner over it that reads, "You Belong Here." The mural was painted by artist Audrey Carver.
"She let them paint the squares, and then they got to put paint on their hands and they got to put a handprint on there. When we walk past, the kids say that's my handprint. It's very cute to see," Cannon said.
The motif behind the painting is to represent BIPOC children being welcome at Chelsea Heights, no matter where they come from. Maldonado Pèrez says that it can also be a conversation about race and acceptance.
"Having conversations about race and having those conversations about, 'What do you mean when you say you are welcome here?'" Maldonado Pèrez said. "Families and students can go home and unpack these kinds of conversations."
Chelsea Heights is continuing to navigate budget challenges and administrators foresee that their budget will not increase or decrease for the remainder of the year. But they are still looking for any help they can get.
If you would like to get into contact and help volunteer, donate, or drop off art supplies you can email them. If you would like to donate to the PTO Chelsea Heights Arts and Music directly to the school, you can find more information here.
