Photo by Paula Merritt / The Meridian StarDearrion Ruffin, left, and Myron Nuby discuss their plans for their math assignment, part of an effort to integrate the arts into classes in the Meridian Public School District.

Poplar Springs Elementary School fifth grader Hailey McIntosh bounced, danced, shook and shimmied Thursday, waving a blue scarf – each movement represented a different layer of the earth’s atmosphere. She smiled and seemed in synch with her fellow classmates in Linda Posey’s science class.

This day, however, Posey sat and observed her students immerse themselves simultaneously into a colorful world of dance and science.

Julie White, associate professor of dance education at the University of Southern Mississippi, led the lesson, showing teachers how to blend the arts into other subject areas.

The experience garnered rave reviews from students and teachers alike. 

“It’s really fun and entertaining, and I think it helped me learn better,” Hailey said as the class ended. “I learned a lot about the earth I didn’t know.”

Poplar Springs in Meridian earned designation from the Mississippi Arts Commission years ago for integrating arts into each subject. Oakland Heights Elementary and Northwest Middle schools also have the Whole School designation.

These endeavors have served as part of the dress rehearsal for what the Meridian Public School District, a host of community partners and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts-supported effort called Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child.

The Kennedy Center selected the district as one of three nationwide in 2016 for a four-year grant to create access to the arts education to all students. Twenty-four U.S. communities ranging from Juneau, Alaska to San Juan, Puerto Rico participate in program that offers $125,000 of in-kind services from the Kennedy Center.

With a group of 30 school, government, nonprofit, business, and other leaders assembled to support Any Given Child in Meridian, an event Tuesday will serve as opening night to formally introduce the widespread arts education effort to community.

The community kickoff for Any Given Child will begin at 6 p.m. at the Mississippi State University Riley Center downtown. The lobby will display artwork created by students from the Meridian Public School District, and the theater will showcase choir, band, and drama selections. The event is free and open to the public.

A rich history

Charlotte Tabereaux, educational director at the MSU Riley Center, said Any Given Child draws from Meridian’s rich history of supporting the arts and commitment to public education.

Among the arts organizations in the city of more than 39,100 residents, Meridian has a museum of art, a symphony orchestra, children’s choir, theater, film academy, barber shop chorus, and concert series of chamber music.

Long term, Any Given Child aims to impact more than Meridian public school students. If successful, it will improve the quality of life and help promote the community’s economic needs, attracting more industry and jobs to the region. 

With the Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience opening in April and a planned 2020 opening of the Mississippi Children’s Museum–Meridian, Any Given Child helps build on the existing and growing arts scene in the Queen City, Tabereaux said

“I see Meridian as on the cusp of something really big,” she said.

A broad impact

Leaders promoting the Any Given Child in Meridian say the program will have a much larger impact than exposing students to visual arts, dance and music just for the sake of expanding students’ knowledge of arts, although they say that’s also important.

“We got involved in this because we know the arts are a means of better engaging students across academic disciplines and data shows it improves student achievement across disciplines,” said Lloyd Gray, executive director of the Phil Hardin Foundation, which joined with the Riley Foundation to contribute $25,000 toward the program required by the Kennedy Center.

“Success is student achievement going up, fewer discipline problems, and higher teacher morale,” Tabereaux said.

Educators also tout the arts education program for enhancing creativity, critical thinking, teamwork, collaboration, exposure to new ideas – all skills and abilities sought after in the professional world.

This multi-year effort has a plan to expose students to professional artists inside the schools and taking them to productions in the city and elsewhere, including an opera dress rehearsal in Jackson. It also includes physical improvements to schools, adding more arts classes and musical instruments, continued training and providing more art materials in the classroom.

This requires more resources to make it happen. Tabereaux said Any Given Child in Meridian will likely have a budget of $750,000 to $1 million during the next school year. She plans to soon announce grant awards to support the effort. Continued and additional public support from public, private, and nonprofit organizations and individuals will help sustain the effort.

Expanding the reach

In the last year, teachers in the elementary through middle school grades have had monthly training related to arts integration. Dance, visual, and musical artists are invited to the schools to help math, science, social studies, and English teachers learn how to integrate movement, sounds, and visual arts into their daily lesson plans.

For example, math teachers at Poplar Springs use the iconic soup cans created by Andy Warhol when teaching multiplication. First graders create their own fish using materials of texture when learning the difference of touch and feel.

“You can see every single child engaging the lesson when art is integrated,” said teacher Haley Alexander, standing among her first graders as they created colorful fish with foil, wood, and other colorful “fins.”

Clair Huff, the arts coordinator for the Meridian Public School District, said arts integration taps into students’ creativity. For example, students in English classes could write and perform their own songs. In science classes, students may dance to the life cycle of butterflies.

“We’re expanding the reach of arts integration across the district,” she said.

This year, the school district has sent principals and teachers to national training, expanded community committees involving programs, funding, and research, and continued to train teachers on how to include the arts into all classes.

“Every new teacher will be trained in arts integration,” Tabereaux said.

A concrete foundation

Back at Poplar Springs, fourth grade math teacher Kara Moulds took notes as she watched the fifth grade science class shake and twirl an array of colored scarfs representing the hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere.

Moulds said she uses visual artwork in her math lessons. Different designs, subject matter, colors and other parts of the artwork help make math more alive to students.

“It adds a concrete foundation that has meaning to students,” she said.

If you go

The Meridian Public School District will launch Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the MSU Riley Center in downtown Meridian. The free event will include an arts show and choir, band, and drama performances by Meridian public school students.