President-Elect Updates - Lisa Vartanian

Lisa Vartanian Paramus School District lvartanian@paramusschools.org

Welcome back to the 2020-2021 school year! Whether you started your year in a hybrid or distance learning model, I know that you are diligently working and engaging with your music students keeping the arts alive and thriving in your schools. In the middle of these uncertain times, I am so thankful for your incredible commitment to the important work we do. When I go online, I see all the music education pages and all the teachers reaching out via social media and helping each other with lesson plans, teaching resources, and webinars. And it makes me feel confident that we will get through this, and that our students will continue to learn and grow. It's our nature to persevere and to work in partnership, and it's what makes us a fantastic music education community.

This year I was reminded of the power of partnership when I worked on the September Ready report with Arts Ed NJ. Following the June 29 release of the New Jersey Department of Education's guidance for reopening schools, Arts Ed NJ unveiled a comprehensive, 126-page document offering practical guidance for K-12 school administrators and arts educators seeking to provide meaningful arts instruction for their students. The document was the product of a collaborative effort involving more than 130 arts administrators, educators, practitioners, and association leaders. It highlights strategies, plans, and solutions needed to deliver arts instruction in a way that addresses, first and foremost, critical health, safety, and well-being considerations for students, faculty, and staff. It is a critical resource for these times.

With the unveiling in June of The Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework, New Jersey is now the first state in the nation to provide a formal roadmap illustrating how the arts foster and often amplify social and emotional learning. More importantly, the framework shows how educators can effectively embed social-emotional learning into their arts curriculum. "This new framework shows beyond any doubt that arts education provides students with opportunities to exercise their SEL skills," stated Dr. Maurice Elias. A professor of psychology at Rutgers University and director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab, Dr. Elias served as a co-chair of the Social and Emotional Learning and Arts Education Taskforce that developed the framework. "As students exercise their SEL skills, they reach and meet arts standards in a deeper, more integrated way than they otherwise would. This website is a must-bookmark for anyone concerned with arts education or SEL, or the well-being of our students." Social-emotional learning is a process intended to provide students with the knowledge, attitude, and skills needed to understand and manage emotions, confront challenges and make responsible decisions. The focus is on self-awareness, social awareness and self-confidence. The arts, by their very nature, are a catalyst for students' social and emotional development.

Core competencies for social-emotional learning were adopted by New Jersey in 2017. The Social and Emotional Learning and Arts Education Taskforce convened by SEL4NJ and Arts Ed NJ, dedicated 18 months to creating this new framework to illuminate the intersection between arts education and social-emotional learning. The goal was to define how to embed social-emotional learning into instruction, with the overarching goal of enhancing arts education. As school districts move towards the implementation of the newly adopted Student Learning Standards in the Visual and Performing Arts, the Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework will be a critical resource. For more information about the Arts Education and Social and Emotional (SEL) Framework, visit http://selarts.org. For more information about the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Visual and Performing Arts, visit https://njartsstandards.org

Heading into my second year as President-elect for the NJMEA, I stand amazed by the incredible music educators I meet through webinars, workshops, and committee work. Last year, I had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Libby Gopal, Music Educator at the East Orange School District and NJMEA member. At the state level, Libby is on the All-State Choral Procedures Committee, is one of the North Jersey Schools Music Association Treble Choir Managers, and served as a member of the NJ Music Education Large Ensemble Task Force. She also serves as a clinician for both the NJMEA and NJ-ACDA. As the New Jersey American Choral Directors Association's Inclusivity Chair, Libby is responsible for creating urban outreach initiatives and generating resources for educators seeking help empowering their underserved students in music education in her region. I wanted to learn more about this vital work, so I sat down with Libby for a brief interview. The interview helps shine a light on Libby's incredible work and provides ideas for replicating her advocacy role in other areas across our state. In 2017, the NJACDA President, Dr. Christopher Thomas, approached me about chairing a brand-new position on the state board: Inclusivity Chair. Dr. Thomas strongly believed that diverse representation was imperative if we were to move forward as an organization. He helped me imagine what "inclusivity" could mean in the choral arts. With this charge, I started brainstorming what an inclusive, choral learning experience could look and feel like. Thus, the NJACDA Voices United Choir Festival was born. This NJACDA Inclusivity initiative aims to create an in-depth, authentic learning experience that focuses on reaching out to underrepresented, at-risk minority students and including them in a festival that celebrates their multiethnic backgrounds. Nestled between Newark, Irvington, and Orange, my high school - East Orange Campus High School - seemed a natural choice for hosting the festival. Via this initiative, it was my vision to inspire and empower our underrepresented student voices by featuring multiethnic works and fostering camaraderie among other students and teachers from Title 1 school districts. After several conversations and school planning committee meetings, Dr. Ann Matlack donated her services as a guest clinician in 2017. She believed in the vision of the festival and provided valuable feedback for the 2018 Voices United Choir Festival.

What are the common challenges and opportunities teachers and districts face in this work? What resources/strategies have you leveraged to overcome some of the challenges?

One challenge is the lack of opportunities for urban educators to share strategies and successes. In 2017 I submitted a proposal to present a session at the 2018 NJMEA conference entitled, "A cheat sheet for urban music teaching success." The session was created to foster space for urban educators to come together at the state level, ask questions, and share ideas that could work for our students. Since then, I have led several urban music educator roundtable discussions for NJMEA and NJACDA. A lack of resources and funding is another recurring theme in urban education. To help educators combat this

issue, a list of grant resources was presented and discussed at the NJACDA 2019 Summer Conference at Rutgers University and digitally shared (https://njacda.com/fall2019-newsletter/). In terms of informational resources, Dr. David Mwangi, Patrick O'Donnell, and Matthew Barone provided me with free resources and instructional videos to include in the NJACDA eLearning Newsletter (https://prezi.com/view/TWu3yCgSCjxYQH6vIHBG/). Another set of helpful resources came from a collaboration with Dr. Ann Matlack and Kason Jackson to compile materials and content to use with students to engage them in meaningful conversations about race and racism (http://njacda.com/).

What are the things that you are doing to effect change in your chair position?

My purpose, which drives my actions in this position, has always been the same: to inspire, empower, and provide educational resources to teachers. Since becoming the Inclusivity Chair, I have conscientiously increased my networking efforts. Dennis Argul, Katy Brodhead, and Lisa Vartanian have provided a slew of resources and educational grant opportunities that I have meticulously compiled onto my NJACDA Grant Resource page. Katy Brodhead, Kason Jackson, Meg Spatz, Peter Tamburro, Monique Retzlaff, and Latasha Casterlow have all at one point or another participated in the NJMEA/NJACDA Urban Music Educator Roundtable discussions and have influenced future discussion forums. Dr. Dumpson has been a wonderful mentor and clinician in East Orange and recently reached out to discuss urban outreach initiatives. Dr. Anthony Leach was our guest clinician for the Voices United Choir Festival in 2019. Dr. Ferdinand enriched our 2019 NJACDA Summer Urban Music Educator Roundtable discussion and continues to be a great inspiration. School partnerships are the key to effective advocacy. I started cultural exchange programs in 2009 before the inclusivity chair position existed. South Brunswick High School's orchestra program partnered with East Orange Campus High School to perform classical masterpieces and contemporary urban music with a chamber orchestra. The partnership lasted from 3 to 4 years. Since then, I have partnered with West Orange High School and Carteret High School's choir programs and planned a cultural exchange program with Tenafly High School when the pandemic hit. When I was awarded my first ACDA Fund For Tomorrow Grant in February 2019, Dr. Dilworth partnered with me to provide the East Orange Campus High School students and the Western High School for Girls (Baltimore) a day of choral workshops, a "student for a day" experience, providing mini private lessons, and organizing a mass sing-along during the "Elaine Brown Day" celebration at Temple University. The goal of the experience was to inspire at-risk minority students to apply for post-secondary careers and vocal music experiences. Moving forward, Dr. Dilworth agreed to be our 2020 clinician for the Voices United Choir Festival. Due to the pandemic, conversations are now evolving towards a virtual platform. As part of the Arts Advocacy Now panel discussion and Small Group Work Session, my Inclusivity Co-Chair and I were able to discuss with music educators from across the state what worked well during distance learning and how we can move forward as a profession. The input gathered from the Choir Small Group Session will fuel the virtual offerings the inclusivity team puts forth during the 2020-2021 school year.

What positive steps have you seen in your tenure thus far?

In 2018, the Voices United Choir Festival expanded to accommodate eight schools from West Orange, South Orange, Newark, East Orange, and Passaic. To expand our reach and infuse new ideas, Dr. Thomas encouraged me to grow the Inclusivity team. Kason Jackson, choir director at Carteret High School, was a natural choice. With a newly expanded team, Kason and I started leading NJACDA and NJMEA roundtable discussions for urban educators. In August 2019, I was awarded the ACDA Fund For Tomorrow Grant so I could fund the festival for the 2019 school year while expanding the scope of the original festival by bringing in a guest clinician, Mr. Vinroy Brown, to host a performance-based lecture on the history of African American Choral Literature featuring the Westminster Choir College Jubilee Singers. We are currently exploring how we can virtually offer a similarly enriching and empowering experience for the 2020-2021 school year. I am grateful for the opportunity to help enact change at the state level and hope to provide as many opportunities as possible for our teachers and students who have been left out of the educational narrative. For more information, please contact Libby Gopal at libby.gopal@eastorange.k12.nj.us