Unfortunately the reality is that we don’t have that many teachers of color and haven’t for centuries so the only thing we can do to make it better is have better curriculum for the students, artistically and academically.- Mia haskins
Since OSA has been opened the majority of students have been students of color, the concept of the school was to get youth who can’t afford to have extra arts training. As time has progressed that has been less and less the schools goal, in other words the school has became gengerfied. The impact this has had on children is negative in my opinion because the lack of students of color here discourage other students of color to attend the school and for the ones that are already enrolled- stay.
I took two surveys one asking about how students felt about diversity and the second asking would they be interested on being on a team to help diversify the school. The impact this could possibly have on the community is huge, the amount of talent that OSA has can change the world so if we had more kids that actually live in our communities and can actually make a change the school can become something great again. The seven years I’ve been at OSA I’ve seen the diversity fall and less of a community. My sixth grade year the school was filled with people of color BSU was basically an entire classroom full of kids learning about black history. The amount of diversity lost is making us also lose money. I bring money into this because the more children that walk through the doors everyday the more money. There is plentality of kids of color who would love the opportunity to have art classes for free 3 hours a day.
We can have a summer camp where students get to explore all of the emphasis, not just one. They would have a full day of “school” but get to have fun and explore each emphasis, this would have to be heavily marketed in public schools all throughout Oakland. My actual solution to this issue is to have a team of people that focus just on getting kids from public schools all around oakland to try out for the school. They would set up a ‘open house” at these schools so the parents can see what OSA is all about and how it can benefit their child. Timewise it would probably take about 1-2 years to get the team because it needs to be full of people of color who genuinely want to see OSA change for the better and not just money. The interview process needs to be super extensive to make sure that the people applying ar genuine and have a love for helping others. Once we have a team of about 20 people, they will then have to come up with a list of schools they plan to visit. They will be able to split up in different pods and go to different parts of Oakland and other cities. Once it’s time for them to go to ot to the different schools they would give a presentation to students and their parents and sometime kids from OSA would showcase their art. The team of people would have to be motivated to do community work and organizing, somewhat because this isn’t a school required program.
I created a survey to send to all students at OSA from grades 9-12 asking if they think they would benefit from this program and if they would have been interested in their younger years. 100% agreed that kids grades 5-8 would benefit from having a community outreach program created by OSA, 100% said they would have been interested in this program while in middle or elementary school. Since OSA has been opened the majority of students have been students of color, the concept of the school was to get youth who can’t afford to have extra arts training. As time has progressed that has been less and less the schools goal, in other words the school has became gengerfied. The impact this has had on children is negative in my opinion because the lack of students of color here discourage other students of color to attend the school and for the ones that are already enrolled- stay. I then created a second survey asking about the amount of diversity around the school and how it affects them, the most obvious question being do they wish the school was more diverse and 100% said yes, most people that took the survey have been at OSA since the 6th grade so that lead me to ask, did they initially enroll into OSA because of the amount of diversity, 60% said yes 40% said no.
I took two surveys one asking about how students felt about diversity and the second asking would they be interested on being on a team to help diversify the school. The impact this could possibly have on the community is huge, the amount of talent that OSA has can change the world so if we had more kids that actually live in our communities and can actually make a change the school can become something great again. The seven years I’ve been at OSA I’ve seen the diversity fall and less of a community. My sixth grade year the school was filled with people of color BSU was basically an entire classroom full of kids learning about black history. The amount of diversity lost is making us also lose money. I bring money into this because the more children that walk through the doors everyday the more money. There is plentality of kids of color who would love the opportunity to have art classes for free 3 hours a day.
We can have a summer camp where students get to explore all of the emphasis, not just one. They would have a full day of “school” but get to have fun and explore each emphasis, this would have to be heavily marketed in public schools all throughout Oakland. My actual solution to this issue is to have a team of people that focus just on getting kids from public schools all around oakland to try out for the school. They would set up a ‘open house” at these schools so the parents can see what OSA is all about and how it can benefit their child. Timewise it would probably take about 1-2 years to get the team because it needs to be full of people of color who genuinely want to see OSA change for the better and not just money. The interview process needs to be super extensive to make sure that the people applying ar genuine and have a love for helping others. Once we have a team of about 20 people, they will then have to come up with a list of schools they plan to visit. They will be able to split up in different pods and go to different parts of Oakland and other cities. Once it’s time for them to go to ot to the different schools they would give a presentation to students and their parents and sometime kids from OSA would showcase their art. The team of people would have to be motivated to do community work and organizing, somewhat because this isn’t a school required program.
I created a survey to send to all students at OSA from grades 9-12 asking if they think they would benefit from this program and if they would have been interested in their younger years. 100% agreed that kids grades 5-8 would benefit from having a community outreach program created by OSA, 100% said they would have been interested in this program while in middle or elementary school. Since OSA has been opened the majority of students have been students of color, the concept of the school was to get youth who can’t afford to have extra arts training. As time has progressed that has been less and less the schools goal, in other words the school has became gengerfied. The impact this has had on children is negative in my opinion because the lack of students of color here discourage other students of color to attend the school and for the ones that are already enrolled- stay. I then created a second survey asking about the amount of diversity around the school and how it affects them, the most obvious question being do they wish the school was more diverse and 100% said yes, most people that took the survey have been at OSA since the 6th grade so that lead me to ask, did they initially enroll into OSA because of the amount of diversity, 60% said yes 40% said no.
With the results from my survey it’s clear that kids at OSA would like to see more diversity. Seeing the amount of change since 2005 is drastic. It’s giving our kids of color less opportunities to get into the Arts, and being able to have a the resources to have expensive one-on-one trainings is a blessing, a blessing that not all kids are able to receive.
Programs that we already have in place like Step It Up are only to give the kids a better chance to get into OSA, but what kids are actually getting access to this? Where are we marketing this program? What cities are we letting people know in? Besides Step It Up the only other school program I’m aware of is the Dance Emphasis Savage Jazz, and that isn’t cheap. As someone who took those classes they aren’t cheap.
So what programs do we really have to let people know we exist? As far as speaking about student impact our current students of color are less motivated because of the lack of teachers and students of color. It has been many studies that show students of color do significantly better in school when their teacher looks like them.
Unfortunately the reality is that we don’t have that many teachers of color and haven’t for centuries so the only thing we can do to make it better is have better curriculum for the students, artistically and academically. At OSA students have a full 8-9 hour day, they have academics the first half and arts the second. In these long periods of time students attention spans are getting lost and somehow they all need to become engaged again. If arts start letting students give their opinions on what music they should play or sing, and which art piece to make, and what prompts to use when writing a piece classes would be more engaging for everyone. That meaning more referrals to the school, if the school doesn't make a change and tries to keep people of color engaged and included in school curriculum the diversity rate is going to continue to drop.
Programs that we already have in place like Step It Up are only to give the kids a better chance to get into OSA, but what kids are actually getting access to this? Where are we marketing this program? What cities are we letting people know in? Besides Step It Up the only other school program I’m aware of is the Dance Emphasis Savage Jazz, and that isn’t cheap. As someone who took those classes they aren’t cheap.
So what programs do we really have to let people know we exist? As far as speaking about student impact our current students of color are less motivated because of the lack of teachers and students of color. It has been many studies that show students of color do significantly better in school when their teacher looks like them.
Unfortunately the reality is that we don’t have that many teachers of color and haven’t for centuries so the only thing we can do to make it better is have better curriculum for the students, artistically and academically. At OSA students have a full 8-9 hour day, they have academics the first half and arts the second. In these long periods of time students attention spans are getting lost and somehow they all need to become engaged again. If arts start letting students give their opinions on what music they should play or sing, and which art piece to make, and what prompts to use when writing a piece classes would be more engaging for everyone. That meaning more referrals to the school, if the school doesn't make a change and tries to keep people of color engaged and included in school curriculum the diversity rate is going to continue to drop.
