Recognition

Performing Arts Learning Centers make their matches!





September, 2010
Hawai‘i Arts Alliance received a generous gift of $110,000 to enhance arts education opportunities within the Hawai‘i State Department of Education. The gift focused on the Performing Arts Learning Centers (PALC). These centers provide performance skills to thousands of students per year, and countless others who are exposed to the arts as audience members. This generous contribution forestalled potential disastrous cuts to the PALCs this past year, and ensured at least another year of youth performing arts education.

Aurora Fruehling, Alliance Board Chair, and Kim Coco Iwamoto, Board of Education (pictured), delivered one of the final checks to the Central Theatre Arts Academy at Mililani High School on September 7, 2010 at 2:30 p.m. to celebrate the PALC’s achievements.

The momentous gift was a challenge grant. Each Center had to raise matching donations to the initial $5,000 to receive a second grant installment. Eight of the nine PALCs have successfully matched their grants.

High School Performing Arts Learning Centers are located on Oahu, Maui, Hawai‘i Island, and Kauai, and they are:
• Baldwin High School Performing Arts Learning Center
• Castle Performing Arts Center
• Hilo High School Performing Arts Learning Center
• Kaimuki High School Performing Arts Center
• Kauai Performing Arts Learning Center
• Central Theatre Arts Academy - Mililani
• Nanakuli High and Intermediate Performing Arts Center
• Performing Arts Center of Kapolei
• Alliance for Drama Education’s T-Shirt Theatre at Farrington High School

The Department of Education continues to suffer budget strains, and often, the arts are the first to leave the classroom. The performing arts learning centers represent an important educational tool. These centers also build life skills, confidence, and demonstrate the wider breadth of career possibilities to our youth who need to be creative thinkers for the future wellbeing of our community.

Please contact Hawai‘i Arts Alliance at 533-2787, or visit http://www.hawaiiartsalliance.org for more information on how you can help to keep arts in the schools.


2009 ARTS FIRST Honors Educators

Hawai‘i Arts Alliance honors educators who support arts in the classroom

Every year Hawai‘i Arts Alliance is hosts “ARTS FIRST Honors” – to applaud teachers who have completed professional development in the arts in the previous two years. For every 32 hours of coursework accomplished in this two year period, teachers earn a Certificate of Study Award.

DOE teachers from across the State who earn professional development credit in the arts are invited to this special reception with education administrators, and other special guests. This year, on May 2, 2009, Pat Hamamoto, Superindendent, Hawai‘i State Department of Education, presented the accomplished educators with their study award certificates. Keynote presentation was delivered by Iggy Jang, Concert Master for The Honolulu Symphony.

This was the third annual event hosted by the Hawai‘i Arts Alliance in an effort to recognize our DOE teachers for their central role in the lives of our youth, and their persistence to keep the arts in the classroom against funding shortfalls, and other lack of resources.

Hawai‘i Arts Alliance, in partnership with Hawai‘i Department of Education, and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, has been offering summer institutes since 1995 and professional development workshops in the arts since 2001 as part of ARTS FIRST. These classes are aligned with Hawai‘i Content and Performance Standards and include creating, performing/exhibiting, and responding to art.

ARTS FIRST formally came into existence when the Hawai`i State Legislature enacted ACT 80/99 in 1999. The enabling legislation named the arts as a core subject in Hawai`i prior to a national mandate. It also called for Hawai`i’s major stakeholders in arts education to revise the State’s Fine Arts standards and develop a strategic plan. In 2001, ACT 306/01 was passed into law formally naming the ARTS FIRST Partners and mandating the implementation of the strategic plan.

The ARTS FIRST Partners are State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Hawai‘i Arts Alliance, Hawai‘i Department of Education, Hawai‘i Association of Independent Schools, University of Hawai‘i College of Education, and University of Hawai‘i College of Arts & Humanities. The vision of the ARTS FIRST Partners is Arts for Every Child.

Click on the picture below to see the ARTS FIRST Honors Educators 2009 gallery!