ARTS FIRST


ARTS FIRST was initiated when the Hawai`i State Legislature enacted ACT 80/99. This legislation named the arts as a core subject in Hawai`i prior to the No Child Left Behind 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 goals of ARTS FIRST Hawai`i Strategic Plan for Arts Education are twofold:

1) To guarantee a comprehensive arts education based on the Hawai`i Content and Performance Standards for every elementary student in the State; and

2) To enable every high school student to achieve the standards in one or more of the arts disciplines by grade 12. The plan builds upon four objectives - Advocacy, Research, Teaching, Standards.

To achieve these goals, the ARTS FIRST Partners created an ESSENTIAL ARTS Toolkit for for K-5, generalist classroom teachers. The Toolkit provides a standards-based framework that integrates the arts into curriculum linked with other core subjects, mathematics, science, language arts, social studies.


Strategic Plan

The ARTS FIRST Partners Strategic Plans for 2001-2006 and 2006-2010 can be viewed and downloaded on the links below:

ARTS_FIRST_Strategic_Plan_2001-2006.pdf
ARTS_FIRST_Strategic_Plan_2006-2010_w-chart.pdf

SFCA Reports

The convening agency of the ARTS FIRST Partners is the Hawai‘i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (HSFCA). Every year the HSFCA prepares and submits the annual progress report on the AF Strategic Plan to the Hawai‘i State Legislature as required in ACT 306. Upon request all the previous plans and reports are available. Copies of ARTS FIRST Annual Legislative Reports can be downloaded on the links below:

FY00-01_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY02-03_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY03-04_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY04-05_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY04-05_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY05-06_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt_for_web.pdf
FY06-07_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt.pdf
FY07-08_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt.pdf
FY08-09_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt.pdf
FY09-10_ARTS_FIRST_Legislative_Rpt.pdf