“We are taking the ‘it takes a village’ approach, and hopefully we will come up with something we all can live with,” said Indigo Sams, director of community services for the Center of Creative Arts (COCA) in University City.
Sams was referring to COCA’s unique and extremely ambitious goal of providing each of the 92 schools within the St. Louis Public Schools with an arts education program, tailored specifically to their needs and goals, at no cost to the district.
“We’ve been involved with the St. Louis Public Schools for a very long time,” said Sams.
Through its Urban Arts program, COCA gives more than $800,000 in free arts education to 5,000 children in underserved areas of St. Louis.
“Our motto is: ‘We don’t turn anyone away,'” Sams said. “We currently have 400 students on scholarship.”
COCA has been providing training in the arts to underprivileged youth since its inception in 1986. It established the Urban Arts program in 1992 to ensure that arts education was made available to the entire community.
“We wanted to make arts accessible to every child and raise levels of parent excitement,” said Shawna Flanigan, director of the Urban Arts Program.
Since the program’s partnership with Jefferson Elementary School, for example, parent participation at the school has risen to 82 percent n one of the highest percentages throughout the district, according to a COCA report.
“It’s the best thing that ever could have happened to us,” said Earl Williams, principal of Jefferson Elementary.
“Because of the discipline involved, students improve academically. It makes for a better student, and it makes the children want to come to school.”
Reports also show that students who participated in the many on-site programs COCA provided at Jefferson (including dance and computer art and technology) had better attendance, were more likely to read at grade level and received more academic awards than students who were not involved.
Although COCA leads the initiative, it has collaborated with nearly every major arts and cultural organization in St. Louis, including Dance St. Louis, the Saint Louis Symphony, the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, Young Audiences and the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
“We can’t do it alone,” said Stephanie Riven, executive director of COCA. “And we had to figure out how we could be in every school.”
The initiative is funded through a 15-month planning grant from the Ford Foundation. Incorporating the Urban Arts program into all schools within the Vashon Education Compact (which was completed for the 2004-2005 school year) and planning for the possibility of Urban Arts growing to include the entire district is the purpose for the grant.
The Ford Foundation awarded COCA the grant in recognition of its school reform theory of change developed through Urban Arts and their partnership with real estate developers McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc. and Urban Strategies, a not-for-profit corporation that works to develop revitalization plans for distressed urban communities.
“Transforming neighborhood housing is only one part,” said Riven, referring to COCA’s relationship with McCormack Baron Salazar, Inc.
“You need all of these services (including arts) to make life better.”
An Urban Arts Steering Committee, co-chaired by board members Larry Cohn and Sharilyn Franklin, supervises the development of the public schools project.
Franklin, who also serves as executive vice president and chief operating officer for Fuse Advertising, was introduced to COCA six years ago when her daughter began taking dance classes there and was immediately impressed.
“You have people who are truly concerned about the well-being of children in the schools n so concerned that they give of themselves completely, year after year,” Franklin said.
The Urban Arts Steering Committee is working closely with St. Louis Public Schools to determine a successful method to introduce Urban Arts throughout the district. It has been convening meetings to that effect since December.
“Everyone has come to the table willing to compromise and share,” said Sams. “Even if it does that alone, it has given us arts organizations an opportunity to talk, and that’s important.”
With just under a year to create a plan to expand the program, Flanigan has more questions than answers.
“How big can a program be in each school? What is feasible? What are the essentials? What do we need to do to make it successful?” were just some of the inquiries that came to her mind regarding the task at hand.
“I feel I have the best job in the world. Making connections and building relationships make the program powerful,” Flanigan said.
“We want to use the arts as a vehicle for self-development and need to make access to the arts a basic right for all students.”
