Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

Standing up For Arts Education at City Hall with Councilmen Jones and Goode

We were at City Hall with Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) again today for the latest in our ongoing series of actions to speak up in support of arts education and secure funding for Philadelphia public schools. As you know, The School District of Philadelphia has asked City Council to provide an additional $60 million to schools in next year's budget, and without this additional funding, Philadelphia public schools will be forced to make extreme cuts in extracurricular programs and staff, including eliminating art and music programs.

Councilmen Curtis Jones and Wilson Goode, Jr. were each presented with Arts Education Superhero capes to thank them for their support and leadership in trying to find the money to save school extracurricular programs and staff, and also given letters from public school students from Edmunds, Catharine, and Cassidy Elementary schools about the importance of instrumental music and the arts. Musician and School of the Future graduate Ismail Yusef-Ali Abdus-Salaam and current Cassidy Elementary School sixth grader Saleem Smith then performed an acoustic song and a poem, respectively; and the Councilmen also viewed a Claymation video demonstrating the importance of arts education in schools made by Samantha Ashok, a senior at Masterman and intern for The Clay Studio. You can view more photos from the event on our Facebook page.

In total, four Arts Education Superhero capes now hang in City Council chambers (Councilpersons María Quiñones-Sánchez and Blondell Reynolds Brown received theirs on May 16th) as a symbol of the receiving Councilmembers' commitment to finding a solution for our schools.

To express your support for public education and arts and music programs, send an email to City Council using the form we've created for you here.  You can also keep up with news and other events we're organizing around this important issue by following GroundSwell on Facebook and Twitter, and join us again at Council Chambers (City Hall, Room 400) this Thursday at 9:30 am for another display of action.

 

We were at City Hall with Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) again today for the latest in our ongoing series of actions to speak up in support of arts education and secure funding for Philadelphia public schools. As you know, The School District of Philadelphia has asked City Council to provide an additional $60 million to schools in next year's budget, and without this additional funding, Philadelphia public schools will be forced to make extreme cuts in extracurricular programs and staff, including eliminating art and music programs.