At the May 26th Arts for All Progress Report meeting, Burbank Arts Ed Advocacy Team Co-Chair Alexandra Helfrich gave an impressive presentation detailing the great work of the Burbank team this year.  Her speech is below.

"I’d like to share what we learned this year during our partnership with Arts For All.

Early this week, arts education advocates along with many other parents, educators, and community members in Santa Monica and Malibu were disappointed to learn that Measure A failed according to the latest vote count.* Measure A, a parcel tax initiative conducted by SMMUSD through a mail-in only election, was the district’s best shot at retaining many of its programs and staff.

Whew! Take a deep breath, advocates.

By Camille Schenkkan

Skip lunch to leave work an hour early. Eat an energy bar in the car. Arrive at school at 7pm. Get home at 11pm and do as much reading as possible before passing out. When the alarm goes off at 7am, do it again.

They say advocacy is all about numbers: the number of people in a network and the number of constituents who take action. While this is true, advocacy is also about relationships. Having solid relationships with those in your network as well as those you advocate to is essential to developing the trust needed to make successful change.

Tis the season. Budget season. With all the advocacy campaigns we have launched in recent weeks, I think it's safe to assume that anyone reading this blog has probably taken action on one of our recent campaigns, whether it be for your school district, municipality, or the County.

PTA parent and Arts Ed Advocate Cynthia Willman has authored this Guest Blog outlining her recent meeting with LAUSD board member Yolie Flores organized by a group of parent advocates in LAUSD District 5.

Joint Committee on Arts: The Creative Economy as a Jobs Engine

I have to admit, when we embarked on this process last fall it was hard to imagine that just a few months later, five teams in five school districts would be leading their own advocacy campaigns, and that so many individuals would be taking on leadership and figuring out how they can sustain their arts ed programs and their advocacy efforts into the future.