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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSP200900004 Staff Report 2009-05-05OF ALg� �'IRGINt�' COUNTY OF ALBEMARLE PLANNING STAFF REPORT SUMMARY Project Name: SP2009 -004 Old Crozet School Staff: Rebecca Ragsdale Planning Commission Public Hearing: Board of Supervisors Public Hearing: May 5, 2009 June 10, 2009 Owners: County of Albemarle Applicant: County of Albemarle Acreage: 8.8 acres Special Use Permit: Private School 18.10.2.2.5 TMP: 56, Parcels 61 and 62 Existing Zoning and By -right use: Location: 1408 Crozet Avenue R2 Residential; Public school or residential uses Magisterial District: White Hall Conditions: Yes DA (Development Area): Crozet Requested # of Dwelling Units: NA Proposal: Amend special use permit to allow reuse Comprehensive Plan Designation: of the Old Crozet School for two private schools Crozet Transect (CT 1 & 2) Develop ment Area Preserve Character of Property: School building and Use of Surrounding Properties: Residential recreation fields and public elementary school Factor Favorable: Factor Unfavorable: 1. The reuse of the building for 1. No unfavorable factors have private school uses and cultural been identified. arts instruction are consistent with desired community uses identified during the Old Crozet School reuse study. 2. It will provide expanded educational opportunities to the community, located near residential areas. 3. Approval of the special use permit would allow lease agreements to be completed and the lease of the building would result in a gross increase in revenue of $42,710.10. The County currently spends approximately $29,214.25 annually from the Department of General Services operating budget for routine maintenance and utilities RECOMMENDATION: Staff recommends approval of this Special Use Permit, with conditions noted on page 6 of this staff report. STAFF PERSON: REBECCA RAGSDALE PLANNING COMMISSION: May 5, 2009 BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: June 10, 2009 SP 2009 -004 OLD CROZET SCHOOL AMENDMENT Petition: PROJECT: SP 2009 -0004 Old Crozet School Arts PROPOSED: Request to amend SP 91 -10 to allow for the existing Old Crozet School building and grounds to be used for both a private school for arts instruction and also the Field School, a private middle school for boys. ZONING CATEGORY /GENERAL USAGE: R -1 Residential - 1 unit/acre SECTION: 18.10.2.2.5 Private Schools COMPREHENSIVE PLAN LAND USE /DENSITY: Designated CT 1 Development Area Preserve for Parks and Greenways in the Crozet Master Plan and limited residential at densities of 1 dwelling unit per 20 acres. ENTRANCE CORRIDOR: No LOCATION: 1408 Crozet Avenue TAX MAP /PARCEL: 56, Parcels 61 and 62 MAGISTERIAL DISTRICT: White Hall Specifics of Proposal: This is a request to amend the special use permit for a private school on the Old Crozet School property. (SP 91 -10) The existing permit specifies that no students shall drive to school, but the proposed private school for arts instruction would have students, or parents of students, driving to the site for classes. The request is to remove that condition that prohibits student driving. The County will lease the Old School building to two tenants: Old Crozet School Arts (OCSA) and the Field School. OCSA is a non - profit organization that would offer classes to the community in dance, visual arts, music, theater, and other art forms to all ages. Additional information from OCSA is provided as Attachment C. The Field School of Charlottesville is a private middle school for boys that is currently located in the community building at Crozet Park and has a need for more space. The Field School will have an estimated maximum enrollment of 100 students and OCSA will have an estimated maximum of 84 students attending classes at one time or concurrent with Field School classes; however there may be more students total enrolled in OCSA. The recommended condition of approval on page 6 addresses the maximum number of students and not total enrollment. Characteristics of the Site and Adjoining Area: The property is zoned R2 Residential and consists of 2 parcels that total 8.8 acres. The overall building area is approximately 25,000 square feet, including the main level, basement, and an addition. The Old Crozet School is included within the potential Crozet National Register Historic District as a contributing structure. The school building is currently vacant and has been since the Charlottesville Waldorf School relocated. There is an existing paved parking lot, which upon field survey has a total of approximately 41 spaces and potentially more spaces could be provided if the parking lot layout is reconfigured and restriped. The zoning ordinance requirement is 37 spaces so there appears to be adequate parking. To SP 2009 -004 Old Crozet School Arts PC 5/5/09 BOS6/10/09 Staff Report Page 2 of 6 verify parking, a parking sketch is required by Zoning. Other site features include a playing field, a ball field, and a basketball court. Parrot Branch runs along the southernmost property line boundary. Surrounding the Old School property to the north, west, and south is the Crozet residential neighborhood Laurel Hills, zoned R2 Residential. Across the street to the east is Crozet Elementary School, which is zoned RA Rural Areas. The Crozet Development Area Boundary runs just north or the Old Crozet School and along the northern property boundary of Crozet Elementary School. Please refer to the attached location maps for more information. (Attachment A- Aerial, Attachment B- Zoning) Background: The Old Crozet Elementary School was built in 1924 and used as a public school until 1990 with a maximum enrollment of 271 students as a County school. From 1991 through 2007 the Charlottesville Waldorf School leased the facility. SP 91 -10 for a private school was approved June 5, 1991 with the following conditions: 1. Total enrollment shall be limited to 271 students. No students shall be permitted to drive to school. 2. Use shall not commence without approvals from the appropriate state, local, and federal agencies. The restriction on students driving to school was intended to address concerns that a private school use would be a higher traffic generator than the previous public school. The Old Crozet School has been vacant since September 2007 when the Charlottesville Waldorf School lease expired. A reuse study was conducted with community input gathered on preferred ideas on reuse of the school. The final report was presented to the Board on September 3, 2008. The Board directed staff to continue to explore long term uses, as well as interim uses of the property, until a long term use of the building is determined. Based on criteria from the study and other County goals, two of the proposals were deemed potentially suitable and advantageous to the County: the Field School of Charlottesville and the Old Crozet School of Arts. Because neither entity proposes to use the entire facility, it is possible to lease to both, maximizing the use of the facility. Lease agreements are currently being negotiated with the two schools underway and will be reviewed by the Board, with required public hearings to be held prior to lease approval. Conformity with the Comprehensive Plan: Crozet Master Plan The Crozet Master Plan (CMP), Place Type & Built Infrastructure Map (inset below) designates the Old Crozet School property as Crozet Transect (CT) 1 Edge Development Area Preserve. This CMP land use designation was applied to all schools and parks in Crozet. Both the CT 1 and CT 2 land use recommendations are described together in Table 1 and Table 2 of the CMP. These areas are intended to be predominately parks and preserved open space, with agricultural and civic uses such as schools, usually defining the edge of the Crozet Development Area or neighborhood edges. Limited residential uses are intended in theses areas at a density no greater than 1 unit/20 acres. The CMP Green Infrastructure Map also designates the Old Crozet School site as a park and recommends a proposed greenway trail along Parrot Branch, which runs along the southern property line of the Old School site. SP 2009 -004 Old Crozet School Arts PC 5/5/09 BOS6/10/09 Staff Report Page 3 of 6 Place Type & Built Infrastructure Map • R Hor a. _i\ w,ob j DOWNTOWN •�.,'' ���f Wr 01S ICT The CMP, Recommendation #14 for Downtown -Reuse Historic Crozet Elementary School states the following: "The former school could eventually serve as an Albemarle County satellite facility for county services, public meetings and other community uses. If north downtown is included in an adjusted definition of the Development Area, it could be adaptively reused with some public and private residential functions in relation to the surrounding residential neighborhood." Neighborhood Model The Neighborhood Model describes the more "urban" form of development desired for the Development Areas. This special use permit request is for reuse of the school building and no site development changes are proposed. As such, staff has not undertaken an analysis of its relationship to the 12 Principles of the Neighborhood Model, but notes that the school does serve as a neighborhood center. Also, there is sidewalk access to the site from Downtown Crozet. The County has a sidewalk improvement project underway to upgrade sidewalks to the site from St. George Avenue. Staff Comment: Staff will address each provision of Section 31.2.4.1 of the Zoning Ordinance as follows: 31.2.4.1: Special Use Permits provided for in this ordinance may be issued upon a finding by the Board of Supervisors that such use will not be of substantial detriment to adjacent property, Staff believes, due to the existing character of the site and past use as a school this use will not be of detrimental impact to adjacent properties. There are no proposed changes to the building or site and the two private school tenants would have similar use of the site to prior uses. that the character of the district will not be changed thereby and, This is a proposal for reuse of a historic elementary school building for two private school uses so it is consistent with the historic character of the district. Schools are typical located in residential areas. SP 2009 -004 Old Crozet School Arts PC 5/5/09 BOS6/10/09 Staff Report Page 4 of 6 that such use will be in harmony with the purpose and intent of this ordinance, The purpose of the R2 Zoning District as stated in the zoning ordinance is to provide a transition density between higher and lower density areas established through previous development and /or zoning in community areas and the urban area. This use is supportive of residential with uses permitted by right in the district, Private schools are permitted special use permit in the R2 zoning district and this property has historically been a school supporting by -right residential uses in the surrounding area with the additional regulations provided in section 5.0 of this ordinance, There are no additional regulations in section 5.0 that address private schools. and with the public health, safety and general welfare. The public health, safety, and general welfare of the community are protected through the special use permit process which assures that the proposed uses are appropriate in the location requested. The existing school is served by public water and sewer. There are no safety issues identified with reuse of the building for the two private schools. Vehicular access to school property is by Crozet Avenue (Rte. 810). VDOT and the County Engineer have found that the existing entrance and sight distance are adequate. There are no concerns with additional traffic impacts, as the uses proposed would be less intense than previous use of the site. The condition that students shall not drive to school was intended to mitigate traffic concerns. Since the 1991 special use permit was approved, entrance improvements to the site and turn lane and other improvements have been made to Rte. 810. The Field School is currently required to make a bus available to students at their current location in Crozet Park so this is also a recommended condition of approval for this site. There is an existing paved parking lot with approximately 41 spaces, although not all spaces are clearly delineated, and potentially more spaces could be provided if the parking lot layout is reconfigured and restriped. The zoning ordinance requirement is 37 spaces so there appears to be adequate parking. To verify parking, a parking sketch is required by Zoning. The County General Services department is working to provide a parking plan and improvements. Parking can also be managed on the site by coordinating the schedules of the users of the facility and flexibility provided to the private school tenants, which can be managed with Zoning Clearances. SUMMARY_ Staff has identified the following factors favorable to this application: 1. The reuse of the building for private school uses and cultural arts instruction are consistent with desired community uses identified during the Old Crozet School reuse study. 2. It will provide expanded educational opportunities to the community, located near residential areas. 3. Approval of the special use permit would allow lease agreements to be completed and the lease of the building would result in a gross increase in revenue of $42,710.10. The County currently spends approximately $29,214.25 annually from the Department of General Services operating budget for routine maintenance and utilities Staff has identified one factor unfavorable to this application: 1. No unfavorable factors have been identified. SP 2009 -004 Old Crozet School Arts PC 5/5/09 BOS6/10/09 Staff Report Page 5 of 6 RECOMMENDED ACTION: Based on the findings contained in this staff report, staff special use permit 2009 -004 with the following conditions: 1. Maximum number of students on -site attending private school use(s) shall not exceed 185 students. 2. Private schools that operate during normal school hours (8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) shall provide shuttle or bus service for students each school day. ATTACHMENTS A. Aerial Map B. Zoning Map C. 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Old Crozet School Arts Concept Narrative The concept of Old Crozet School Arts, a non - profit school for arts instruction, grew out of the Old Crozet School Re -use Workshop, conducted in June 2008. The results of the Workshop indicated the community's decisive preference to revitalize the old school as a cultural and community center (see "The Old Crozet School Re -use Study" by PMA Planners & Architects, July 2008, Pages 1 and 9 [see Table 1]). While Albemarle County continues its discussion regarding a permanent use for the old school building, OCSA seeks to occupy a portion of the building for the purpose of offering classes in dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and other art forms, thus establishing the beginnings of what could evolve into a vibrant cultural center in the western Albemarle community. OCSA's plan for its portion of the old school turns classrooms into studios, each of which will be coordinated by a teacher or group of teachers centered around teaching in one of the arts. OCSA will be overseen by an Artistic Director (Sharon D. Tolczyk), an Administrative Director (Mollie Washburne), and governed by a Board of Directors. OCSA will offer a schedule of classes that includes instruction for students of all ages. Classes will be scheduled throughout the day in order to accommodate various populations, including preschoolers, homeschoolers, adults, elementary /middle /high school students, and senior citizens. OCSA aims to create a unique opportunity for arts instruction in Albemarle County. By offering classes across the arts, students participating in OCSA will encounter others who share their interest in the arts, but who may be involved in a completely different art form. Surprisingly, this is a rare occurence since most instruction in the arts takes place one art at a time. That is, students may study dance at a dance school, theatre at a theatre school, music at a music studio (or from a private teacher), or art at an art studio. The intermingling under one roof of artists and students from various arts disciplines will promote growth, awareness, and integration of the arts which, in turn, will lay vital groundwork for the development of a cultural center at the Old Crozet School. The Old Crozet School is an ideal home for OCSA. Its spacious layout, with numerous classrooms free of supporting poles and with abundant light, makes it ideally suited to arts instruction. Its proximity to schools makes it easily accessible after school; Henley and-WAHS buses even drive past the Old Crozet School. Furthermore, its location in Crozet means a reduction in traffic and gas consumption since students will not need to travel to Charlottesville for arts instruction. Our proposal is a "green" alternative. OCSA is deeply committed to creating new and unique opportunities for arts instruction in Albemarle County. We believe firmly that, besides being enjoyable and rewarding, study in the arts enhances learning and thinking. "For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing,- imagining, inventing, and thinking [ ... ] how to see new patterns, how to learn from mistakes, and how to envision solutions" (Ellen Winner, "Art for Our Sake," Boston Globe, September 2, 2007 [please see attached article]). At the same time, we seek to bring life to the now -vacant old school building by nurturing its natural calling as a home for the arts. Our venture, from the beginning, has been a collaborative effort to support the community's need to find an occupant for the Old Crozet School. We hope that by responding to the community's expressed desire that the school become a cultural/community center, we will be granted the opportunity to continue our collaboration with the our fellow Albemarle County citizens, and thereby make a vibrant contribution to our community. Attachment C SPECIFIC INFORMATION FOR OCSA SUP APPLICATION OCSA is requesting to amend the condition placed on the already - approved SP- 91 -10, that states, " ... No students shall be permitted to drive to school." Old Crozet School Arts "Mission" Old Crozet School Arts, a nonprofit 501 (c) (3), seeks to establish a school dedicated to instruction in the arts at the Old Crozet School. OCSA aims to attract experienced and highly qualified instructors who will offer classes in dance, theatre, visual arts, music, and other art forms to all age groups (pre- school through adults). OCSA hopes to develop a substantial scholarship program that will allow all who wish to participate in classes the opportunity to do so. OCSA is in the process of incorporating with the intent of attaining legal status as a non - profit by March 2009. Use of the Old Crozet School BuildinLy and Site (Please see attached map of building layout.) OCSA seeks to occupy the rear, newer portion of the Old Crozet School, which houses a total of seven classrooms, plus one small office -type room. Outside of the building, OCSA will use the driveway and parking lot. OCSA students, faculty, and parents will access the building through the side doors. OCSA will otherwise not make use of the grounds, which will be under the auspices of the Field School, which proposes to occupy the front, older portion of the building. Hours of Operation & Populations Served OCSA: Classes will meet throughout the day in order to offer instruction to various populations, including homeschoolers, preschoolers, adults, senior citizens, and elementary, middle, and high school students. Most classes will be held Monday — Friday, but classes will be offered on Saturday, as well, and possibly Sunday. Hours of operation will be approximately 10:00 am — 9:00 pm, although occasionally an earlier or later hour may be scheduled. The bulk of our classes will be offered from 3:30 pm — 8:30 pm Monday — Friday. We will purposefully schedule our classes so that our drop -off and dismissal times do not coincide with arrival or departure times for either the Field School or Crozet Elementary (across the street). In fact, since we will aim to serve students in those populations (and other school populations, as well), our schedule would necessarily allow for transit times from schools to OCSA, and classes would therefore not begin or dismiss at exactly the same time as surrounding schools. FIELD SCHOOL: Field School hours are 9:00 am — 4:00 pm Monday — Friday. Approximately half to two - thirds of Field School students arrive and depart from school on the Field School bus that shuttles students between the school and Charlottesville. Field School faculty and staff will park at the school during their working hours at the school. Surrounding schools' arrival and dismissal times: -- Crozet Elementary: 7:55 am - 2:25 pm. -- Field School begins at 9:00 am, with the bulk of students arriving via the Field School bus around 9:00 am; dismissal and bus departure for most of the students is at 4:00 pm (a small number of students remain for after - school). -- Henley Middle School: 9:06 am - 4:00 pm. -- Western Albemarle High School: 9:00 am - 3:45 pm. OCSA classes would generally begin at 10:00 am and finish by 9:00 pm, although in one or two studios some classes may be scheduled earlier or later. The bulk of OCSA classes would generally begin around 3:30 or 4:45, to allow elementary and then middle /high school students to get to OCSA after school. None of these proposed times conflicts with the arrival or departure of students from Crozet Elementary or Field School on regular school days. Number of Students We anticipate an eventual average class size of 12 students. OCSA students will be part-time students in the building. That is, each student may enroll in one class per week, or several classes per week. Thus, while our total eventual OCSA enrollment may be substantial, it is unlikely that the number of OCSA and Field School students occupying the building at any given time, would exceed 271 (the current SUP condition). In fact, it is highly unlikely that the number of students in the building (OCSA and Field School combined) at any given time would exceed 184 (based on a maximum of 100 Field School students and 84 OCSA students at any one time). Many OCSA students will be dropped off for their classes; some parents (of younger students especially) may opt to park and wait in the building while their children are in class. High school and adult students may drive themselves to class [Amendment to SP 91 -10 needed to allow this possibility]. Not all OCSA classes will begin and end at the same time (different classes will meet for varying amounts of time), which will allow for staggered traffic and parking flow. Crozet Master Plan Relevance Courteously Provided by Rebecca Ragsdale, Senior Planner (We have highlighted in boldface what pertains particularly to OSCA.) The Crozet Master Plan (CMP) designates the Old Crozet School property as Crozet Transect (CT)1 Edge Development Area Preserve. This CMP land use designation was applied to all schools and parks in Crozet. Both the CT 1 and CT 2 land use recommendations are described together in Table I and Table 2 of the CMP. These areas are intended to be predominately parks and preserved open space, with agricultural and civic uses such as schools, usually defining the edge of the Crozet Development Area or neighborhood edges Limited residential uses are intended in theses areas at a density no greater than 1 unit /20 acres. The CMP Green Infrastructure Map also designates the Old Crozet School site as a park and recommends a proposed greenway trail along Parrot Branch, which runs along the southern property line of the Old School site. CMP Page 6, Recommendation #14 for Downtown -Reuse Historic Crozet Elementary School. The former school could eventually serve as an Albemarle County satellite.facility for county services, public meetings and other community uses. If north downtown is included in an adjusted definition of the Development Area, it could be adaptively reused with some public and private residential functions in relation to the surrounding residential neighborhood. Old Crozet School Reuse Workshop Sharon Tolczyk and Mollie Washburne (OCSA Artistic and Administrative Directors, respectively) participated in all of the sessions of the Old Crozet School Reuse Workshop conducted June 19 - 21, 2008. PMA Planners & Architects' final report, "The Old Crozet School Re -use Study" (July 2008), includes useful tables, illustrations and lists that provide details to support PMA's conclusion that the Community desires to reuse the school as a community and cultural center (see Table 1, page 9; Table 2, page 10; Table 3, page 13a; Appendix B; Appendix Q. EXHIBIT A Njgp OF OLD CRDZ'et SC+IDOL Ej (7,714 sqft Building Space) F[EL1� (Pvopose-a) scNooL- (Propose,l) Biographical Information of OCSA Directors Sharon D. Tolczyk, Artistic Director Sharon Donohue Tolczyk previously taught ballet on the faculties of the Boston Ballet School, Walnut Hill School for the arts (Natick, MA), Boston Ballet's Children's Summer Dance Workshop, Amherst Ballet Centre (MA), Schwarz School of Dance (Dayton, OH), Wright State University's PRODANCE (Dayton, OH), and Albemarle Ballet Theatre. At Walnut Hill School, she was a member of the dance department's ballet faculty, and Director of the Dance Extension Division and Summer Dance Workshop. Prior to her teaching career, Sharon danced with- the Dayton Ballet Company and Peridance, a contemporary ballet company in New York City. While in Dayton, she also served as Ballet Mistress for the company and apprentice company, Dayton Ballet Il. She has choreographed for the Amherst Ballet Theatre Company, Dayton Ballet II, Walnut Hill, and Albemarle Ballet Theatre. Sharon received her early training at the Princeton Ballet and in London, England. She studied at Walnut Hill School and the Amherst Ballet Centre during high school, and completed the Major Exams for the Royal Academy of Dancing, London, qualifying her as an Associate Member. After graduating from high school, she was a scholarship student for two years at the School of the Pennsylvania Ballet where she trained with Lupe Serrano and performed in the Pennsylvania Ballet's Nutcracker. During her professional dancing career, she studied in New York City with Maggie Black, Marjorie Mussman, Benjamin Harkarvy, Larry Rhodes and others. She attended workshops with the Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor dance companies. Since moving to Charlottesville in 1996, Sharon has studied art at PVCC with Chica Tenney, John Hancock, and Rebekah Wostrel, and at Mary Baldwin College with Sue Marion. She was a T.A. at Murray Elementary School, where she also served as Chair of the PTO's Cultural Enrichment for three years, and was an Art Print volunteer. She is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society. She and her husband, Dariusz, an Associate Professor in the Slavic Department at the University of Virginia, live in western Albemarle with their two children, Adam and Aleksandra. Sharon currently teaches ballet and art classes at the Greenwood Community Center. Mollie Washburne, Administrative Director Mollie Washburne holds a B.A. in Journalism and Theater from Indiana University, Bloomington. A lifelong ballet enthusiast and supporter, Mollie began her dance training at the Montgomery School of Ballet in Alabama and danced with the Montgomery Civic Ballet, under the direction of Audrey Gryder and Duane Dishion. She went on to train with George Verdak, formerly of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and with Jurgen Pagels at Indiana University. She also studied at the Briansky Ballet Center and was a scholarship student with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City. Mollie and her husband, Jake, who is the General Registrar for Albemarle County, have lived in Crozet with their three children, Spalding Lewis, Ben, and George, since 1988. Mollie established the Art Print program at Brownsville Elementary School and has taught ballet at the Lexington School of Ballet (Virginia) and more recently at Albemarle Ballet Theatre. She is the Managing Editor of New Literary History, a journal of theory and interpretation at the University of Virginia. Art for our sake - The Boston Globe News' LSEARCH http: //ivww. boston.com/news /globe /ideas /articles /2007 /09/02 /art_fo... Home I News I A&E Business Sports Travel Your Life Cars Jobs Real Estate Yellow Pages Today's Globe Local Politics Opinion Magazine Education NECN Special reports Obituaries Advertisement • HOME > NEWS > BOSTON GLOBE > IDEAS Art for our sake Thc��tostonOlobt School arts classes matter more than ever - but not for the reasons you think By Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland I September 2, 2007 Why do we teach the arts in schools? In an educational system strapped for money and increasingly ruled by standardized tests, arts courses can seem almost a needless extravagance, and the arts are being cut back at schools across the country. One justification for keeping the arts has now become almost a mantra for parents, arts teachers, and even politicians: arts make you smarter. The notion that arts classes improve children's scores on the SAT, the MCAS, and other tests is practically gospel among arts - advocacy groups. A Gallup poll last year found that 80 percent of Americans believed that learning a musical instrument would improve math and science skills. But that claim turns out to be unfounded. It's true that students involved in the arts do better in school and on their SATs than those who are not involved. However, correlation isn't causation, and an analysis we did several years ago showed no evidence that arts training actually causes scores to rise. There is, however, a very good reason to teach arts in schools, and it's not the one that arts supporters tend to fall back on. In a recent study of several art classes in Boston -area schools, we found that arts programs teach a specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed elsewhere in the curriculum - and that far from being irrelevant in a test - driven education system, arts education is becoming even more important as standardized tests like the MCAS exert a narrowing influence over what schools teach. Traffic I Weather Mobile IZ•b��•7►Kole] i5M i5L0b3i LIT-11 A YC • ►Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan, 66: prosecutor ran force against organized crime in N.E. • ►The Ink Tank: a daily roundup of editorial cartoons • ►Economy, iob losses lead to openings • ►40 years' worth of thanks . ►'What I saw was a generous woman, a talented, beautiful woman' ►See full list of most e- mailed SEARCH THE ARCHIVES All Globe stories since 2003 are now FREE t Today Yesterday Past 30 days Last 12 months Since 1979 ► More search options Advertisement 1 of 7 2/14/09 3:28 PM Art for our sake -The Boston Globe http: / /www.l)osion.com /news /globe/ ideas /articles /2007 /09 /02 /ari fo... The implications are broad, not just for schools but for society. As schools cut time for the arts, they may be losing their ability to produce not just the artistic creators of the future, but innovative leaders who improve the world they inherit. And by continuing to focus on the arts' dubious links to improved test scores, arts advocates are losing their most powerful weapon: a real grasp of what arts bring to education. It is well established that intelligence and thinking ability are far more complex than what we choose to measure on standardized tests. The high- stakes exams we use in our schools, almost exclusively focused on verbal and quantitative skills, reward children who have a knack for language and math and who can absorb and regurgitate information. They reveal little about a student's intellectual depth or desire to learn, and are poor predictors of eventual success and satisfaction in life. As schools increasingly shape their classes to produce high test scores, many life skills not measured by tests just don't get taught. It seems plausible to imagine that art classes might help fill the gap by encouraging different kinds of thinking, but there has been remarkably little careful study of what skills and modes of thinking the arts actually teach. To determine what happens inside arts classes, we spent an academic year studying five visual -arts classrooms in two local Boston -area schools, videotaping and photographing classes, analyzing what we saw, and interviewing teachers and their students. What we found in our analysis should worry parents and teachers facing cutbacks in school arts programs. While students in art classes learn techniques specific to art, such as how to draw, how to mix paint, or how to center a pot, they're also taught a remarkable array of mental habits not emphasized elsewhere in school. Such skills include visual - spatial abilities, reflection, self- criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today's standardized tests. In our study, funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust, we worked with classes at the Boston Arts Academy, a public school in the Fenway, and the private Walnut Hill School for the arts in Natick. Students at each school concentrate on visual arts, music, drama, or dance, and spend at least three hours a day working on their art. Their teachers are practicing artists. We restricted ourselves to a small sample of high - quality programs to evaluate what the visual arts could achieve given adequate time and resources. Although the approach is necessarily subjective, we tried to set the study up to be as evidence -based as possible. We videotaped classes and watched student - teacher interactions repeatedly, identifying specific habits and skills, and coding the segments to count the times each was taught. We compared our provisional analysis with those of 7 2/14/09 3:28 PM Art for our sake - The Boston Globe http: / /www.boston.com/ news /globe /ideas /articles /2007 /09 /02 /art_fo the teachers gave when we showed them clips of their classes. We also interviewed students and analyzed samples of their work. In our analysis, we identified eight "studio habits of mind" that arts classes taught, including the development of artistic craft. Each of these stood out from testable skills taught elsewhere in school. One of these habits was persistence: Students worked on projects over sustained periods of time and were expected to find meaningful problems and persevere through frustration. Another was expression: Students were urged to move beyond technical skill to create works rich in emotion, atmosphere, and their own personal voice or vision. A third was making clear connections between schoolwork and the world outside the classroom: Students were taught to see their projects as part of the larger art world, past and present. In one drawing class at Walnut Hill, the teacher showed students how Edward Hopper captured the drama of light; at the Boston Arts Academy, students studied invitations to contemporary art exhibitions before designing their own. In this way students could see the parallels between their art and professional work. Each of these habits clearly has a role in life and learning, but we were particularly struck by the potentially broad value of four other kinds of thinking being taught in the art classes we documented: observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self - evaluation. Though far more difficult to quantify on a test than reading comprehension or math computation, each has a high value as a learning tool, both in school and elsewhere in life. The first thing we noticed was that visual arts students are trained to look, a task far more complex than one might think. Seeing is framed by expectation, and expectatioh often gets in the way of perceiving the world accurately. To take a simple example: When asked to draw a human face, most people will set the eyes near the top of the head. But this isn't how a face is really proportioned, as students learn: our eyes divide the head nearly at the center line. If asked to draw a whole person, people tend to draw the hands much smaller than the face - again an inaccurate perception. The power of our expectations explains why beginners draw eyes too high and hands too small. Observational drawing requires breaking away from stereotypes and seeing accurately and directly. We saw students pushed to notice what they might not have seen before. For instance, in Mickey Telemaque's first design class of the term at the Boston Arts Academy, ninth - graders practice looking with one eye through a cardboard frame called a viewfinder. "Forget that you're looking at somebody's arm or a table," Telemaque tells his students. "Just think about the shapes, the colors, the lines, and the textures." Over and over we listened to teachers telling their students to look more closely at the model and see it in terms of its essential geometry. 3 of 7 2/14/09 3:28 PM Art for our sake -The Roston Glohc http: / /www.boston.com /news /glohe /ideas /articles /2007 /09/02 /art_fo... Seeing clearly by looking past one's preconceptions is central to a variety of professions, from medicine to law. Naturalists must be able to tell one species from another, climatologists need to see atmospheric patterns in data as well as in clouds. Writers need keen observational skills too, as do doctors. Another pattern of thought we saw being cultivated in art classes is envisioning - forming mental images internally and using them to guide actions and solve problems. 'How much white space will you be leaving in your self - portrait?" asked Kathleen Marsh at the Boston Arts Academy. "How many other kinds of orange can you imagine?" asked Beth Balliro, also at the Boston Arts Academy, as she nudged her student to move beyond one shade. We noticed art teachers giving students a great deal of practice in this area: What would that look like if you got rid of this form, changed that line, or altered the background? All were questions we heard repeatedly, prompting students to imagine what was not there. Like observing, envisioning is a skill with payoffs far beyond the art world. Einstein said that he thought in images. The historian has to imagine events and motivations from the past, the novelist an entire setting. Chemists need to envision molecular structures and rotate them. The inventor - the envisioner par excellence - must dream up ideas to be turned into real solutions. Envisioning is important in everyday life as well, whether for remembering faces as they change over time, or for finding our way around a new city, or for assembling children's toys. Visualization is recognized as important in other school subjects: The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Education Standards both see it as essential to problem - solving, but art classes are where this skill is most directly and intensively taught. We also found innovation to be a central skill in art classes. Art classes place a high value on breaking the mold. Teachers encourage students to innovate through exploration - to experiment, take risks, and just muck around and see what can be learned. In ceramics, for example, capitalizing on error is a major consideration, says Balliro at the Boston Arts Academy. To a student struggling to stick clay together, she says, "There are specific ways to do it, but I want you guys to play around in this first project. Just go with that and see what happens and maybe you'll learn a new technique." Teachers in our study told students not to worry about mistakes, but instead to let mistakes lead to unexpected discoveries. Finally, many people don't think of art class as a place where reflection is central, but instead as a place where students take a break from thinking. But art- making is nonverbal thinking, and verbal thinking (often public and spoken) is a focal activity of arts classes. We repeatedly saw art teachers push their students to engage in reflective self- evaluation. They were asked to step back, analyze, udge, and sometimes reconceive their projects entirely. 4 of 7 2/14/09 3:28 PM Art for our sake - The Boston Globe http: / /wwiv. boston.com /news /globe /ideas /articles /2007 /09/02 /art_fo... During class critiques, and one -to -one as students worked, teachers asked students to reflect: Is that working? Is this what I intended to do? Can I make this better? What's next? At Walnut Hill School, Jason Green questioned individual students almost relentlessly as they began a new clay sculpture: "What about this form? Do you want to make the whole thing? Which part of it ?" In group critiques, students also learned to evaluate the work of their peers. Making such judgments "in the absence of rule" is a highly sophisticated mental endeavor, says Elliot Eisner, a noted art- education specialist at Stanford University. Though we both have a long history in arts education, we were startled to find such systematic emphasis on thinking and perception in the art classes we studied. In contrast to the reputation of the arts as mainly about expressive craft, we found that teachers talked about decisions, choices, and understanding far more than they talked about feelings. By unveiling a powerful thinking culture in the art room, our study suggests ways that we can move beyond the debate over the value of arts, and start using the arts to restore balance and depth to an education system increasingly skewed toward readily testable skills and information. While arts teachers rightly resist making their classes like 'academic" classes, teachers of academic subjects might well benefit from making their classes more like arts classes. Math students, for instance, could post their in- process solutions regularly and discuss them together. If students worked on long -term projects using primary sources in history class, they would learn to work like real historians and their teachers could offer personalized and "just in time" guidance. Despite the pressures to prepare students for high- stakes tests, some teachers and schools continue to use methods similar to those in the art studio. Ron Berger, a fifth -grade classroom teacher in a public school in Shutesbury, Mass., provides an inspiring example. He adopted an arts -like approach to all subjects, including math, language arts, science, and social studies. His students engage in long -term investigations rather than one -shot assignments or memorization. Their work is continually assessed publicly in critiques so students develop the ability to reflect and improve. Projects are "real work," not "school work" - work that is original and makes a contribution to knowledge. For example, students investigated the purity of drinking water in their town wells, working in collaboration with a local college and learning how to analyze the water in a college lab. No one in the town knew whether the well waters were safe, and the students discovered and reported that they were. Deborah Meier, 'a leading American school reformer and founding principal of the Mission Hill School in Boston, praises Berger's teaching. She worries that "Top -down mandates may actually hinder this kind of culture of high standards." i of 7 2/14/09 3:28 PM Art for our sake - The Boston Globe ht.tp: //www.hostoii.com/ news /glohe /ideas /articles /2007 /09 /02 /art_fo... We don't need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills - we already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value. For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing, and thinking. If our primary demand of students is that they recall established facts, the children we educate today will find themselves ill- equipped to deal with problems like global warming, terrorism, and pandemics. Those who have learned the lessons of the arts, however - how to see new patterns, how to learn from mistakes, and how to envision solutions - are the ones likely to come up with the novel answers needed most for the future. Ellen Winner is a professor of psychology at Boston College. Lois Hetland is an associate professor of art education at the Massachusetts College of Art. Both are also researchers at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co- authors, with Shirley Veenema and Kimberly Sheridan, of "Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, " published this month by Teachers College Press.■ © Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. X12345► More from Boston.com Infor Ads by Google what's this? 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