South Whittier School District has brought the arts back into the classroom through the VAPA program which brings performing arts, music, dance, and visual art classes to elementary students.
The VAPA program vision was initiated by South Whittier School District’s Superintendent, Dr. Gary Gonzales. His vision was to create a place where students are exposed to the performing arts, music, art, dance, and physical movement.
Through this program every elementary students get’s to participate. This program takes place once a week at every school site with students rotating what type of art class they are taking each week, giving them the opportunity to participate in each art subject. These programs are designed to build skills such as collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication all while having fun.
During this time, teachers are able to have their collaboration time, or Data Chats. This time gives them the opportunity to cross collaborate to analyze data, look at student work, plan for instruction and intervention using the essential standards, and learning targets and assessments that the ELA/Math task force have developed.
The VAPA program is written into the district’s LCAP, or Local Control Accountability Plan, and part of the funding began from ESSER funds.