13 Feb

Annual Principal Retreat: Leading for Change Through the Arts

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Principals, Professional Development, Strategic Approach


“It’s wonderful to be able to connect with like-minded colleagues who are champions for the arts.”
-Attendee, 2024 Principal Retreat

Principals from our 24 partner schools across California gathered for two days of community-building, leadership development, hands-on arts workshops, arts planning, and peer exchange. This year’s retreat focused on the intersection of shared leadership, equity, and arts integration for school leaders.

While research shows that effective principal leadership catalyzes positive school change and that the arts improve school climate and student outcomes, principal development programs rarely focus on arts leadership. Our innovative principal program builds the capacity of principals to lead for positive change in their schools and ensure greater access to high-quality arts instruction for the marginalized communities served by their schools.

This retreat provides a unique opportunity for principals to gather, learn from each other, and engage in their own development as school leaders and as leaders in the arts. With the many challenges our schools continue to face, an important component of this retreat is also to care for and celebrate our principals. Thanks to Elizabeth Segerstrom, attendees were also treated to a special dinner and performance of Lion King the Musical at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Following are photos and highlights from our time together.


We kicked off the retreat with a welcome reception, including a Creative Leadership Award for Superintendents , and a performance from middle school jazz band students at our partner Willard Intermediate School in Santa Ana.


Our first full day of the retreat began with community-building as each attendee shared a personal identity object to create a collective art installation in our shared space.


Attendees then participated in hands-on arts integration workshops led by our partners at Collaborations: Teachers and Artists, where they designed lessons for students that met learning goals in the arts and in other subjects such as math, science, English language arts, and history. One attending principal shared, “Participating in the art activity was a great experience. It really allowed me to think about what this would be like for students and teachers.”


Day two began with a mindful painting moment to solidify key learnings from a reading, an activity that could be replicated at their school sites.


Principal Linh Roberts from Los Cerritos Elementary in Paramount, and Principal Logan Manning of Westlake Middle School in Oakland, presented on their successes in developing arts-integrated curriculum as part of our Lesson Labs program.


Principals also participated in a group study of best practices to create more inclusive and equitable schools.


The retreat concluded with a check-in on progress toward strategic arts plan goals and vision setting for the remainder of the school year. An attending principal shared, “Time with Turnaround always re-energizes me and helps to re-ground me in the importance of centering the arts.”

Special thanks to our supporters of this retreat:
Elizabeth Segerstrom
The Segerstrom Foundation

14 Mar

Back Together In Person for Turnaround Arts: California’s Annual Principal Retreat

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Principals

In February 2023, principals from our 22 partner schools across the state came together in Huntington Beach for two days of learning, connection, and arts planning. The retreat focused on the neurobiological science of mindfulness, as it relates to leading and learning. As our guest facilitator, Dr. Niki Elliott of the Mindful Leaders Project, shared: “Regulation of the adult is the necessary prerequisite for healthy co-regulation of a child’s nervous system, brain, and behavior.”

Principals were given tools and knowledge to develop greater self-awareness of brain function, nervous systems and physical reactions in a variety of settings, from calm to stressful. Dr. Elliott shared strategies for self regulation and regulation of others in meeting and classroom settings, to help them more mindfully navigate and lead through difficult conversations with teachers, students and parents.

“The retreat offered valuable information for moving forward with arts integration in an authentic and meaningful way. The mind, body, breath gets at the heart of what makes great instruction happen because it takes into consideration all learners, leaders, and the community.”
– Attendee, Principal Retreat

Following are photo highlights from our time together:

The retreat kicked off with a special performance from Zamboni Middle School’s Jazz Band in partnership with Jazz Angels.

The retreat began with teachers engaging in an art activity to reflect on challenges and successes across four key areas of their work through the arts: building collaboration and a shared vision among their teachers; developing teacher capacity to integrate the arts into the classroom; building a positive school culture and climate; and engaging families.


Dr. Niki Elliott taught attendees a series of breathing exercises to bring awareness to their bodies and practice self-regulation and mindfulness.

Dr. Elliott had principals work on developing and sharing energy profiles to understand what environmental conditions help them feel good and practice self-care.


Participants studied the structure of the brain and the sections that support our sense of safety, self-regulation, memory making, and more.

To reflect upon their retreat experience and intentions, principals engaged in a journaling and vision board collage workshop. The collage workshop invited principals to use metaphor, color, and imagery to create their vision boards. Their final collages serve as reminders of their retreat learnings and commitment to implementing mindful leadership practices on their school campuses.

“THANK YOU for this opportunity. I truly value what was presented, and I want to focus on being mindful to be a better leader.”
– Attendee, Principal Retreat

24 Sep

School Spotlight: Barton Elementary

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Classroom Teachers, Community Members, Parents, Principals, School Environment, Strategic Approach, Students

In 2014, Barton Elementary School in San Bernardino partnered with Turnaround Arts: California to use the arts as a tool for school change. This is their story.

Music: www.bensound.com
Video: Sandra Selva

01 Aug

“I used to think Turnaround Arts was…”

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Arts Specialists, Classroom Teachers, Principals, Professional Development, Regional Coaches

This summer, Turnaround Arts teams from across the nation gathered at Airlie in Warrenton, Virginia to explore the question: How can we leverage the arts to increase equity for our students and community?

In their final retreat hour, new and veteran members of our #TAcalifornia team shared a reflective performance piece. Watch their performance below:

I used to think Turnaround Arts was a grant…
But, now I think it’s instructional strategies that will help our school.

I used to think Turnaround Arts was a prescribed curriculum…
But, now I think it’s a lot of freedom.

I used to think Turnaround Arts sent specialists to our school to teach our kids…
But, now I think we are the specialists.

I used to think Turnaround Arts was one more thing on my plate…
But, now I think it will enhance my plate.

I used to think Turnaround Arts was more work…
But, now I think it will make work more fun.

We used to think Turnaround Arts was far off…
But, now we think it’s family.

10 Jul

What does it take to be #TAcalifornia ready?

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Principals, Professional Development, School Environment, Strategic Approach

Have you heard? Turnaround Arts: California is expanding to include 10 more elementary and middle schools this August!

This means that, in total, we will be serving:

Partner Schools
School Districts
Educators Supported
Students Reached

In preparation for Turnaround Arts: California’s expansion, this past spring we held three principal-focused meetings across the state.

New & experienced Turnaround Arts principals at our middle school principal meeting in Santa Ana, CA

Current principals shared sage advice with our incoming principals about what it takes to be a #TAcalifornia elementary and middle school.  Scroll down to see our favorite words of wisdom:

& even more…

  • Be patient, be flexible, and always do what’s best for the kids.
  • Advocate for the arts by sharing your school’s #TAcalifornia story through press and social media platforms (i.e. instagram, facebook, and twitter).
  • Create arts-based traditions throughout your school calendar (E.g. Latin Dance Festival, Spring arts showcase, etc).
  • Ask the Turnaround Arts: California Principal Leadership Coach, Dr. Akida Long, questions! There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. You can learn from others and then tweak it to fit for your school, staff, and students.
  • Say YES! Participate in everything you can.
  • Relationships matter! Build strong relationships with your teachers, aides, custodians, everyone on campus. 
  • Catalyze teachers to grow beyond their comfort zone and give the students opportunities to explore and experience things they haven’t.
  • Create shared leadership by delegating tasks!
  • Always identify and celebrate your school’s successes, ALWAYS.

By leveraging resources, building school capacity, and raising visibility about why and how the arts have helped their schools, principals are a key pillar in leading arts-fueled school change efforts.

29 Jan

Envisioning the Future with Avenal Elementary

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Classroom Teachers, Principals, Professional Development

Here at Turnaround Arts: California, we host regular professional development (PD) for teachers across our 17 schools. This is because we know that increasing the use of the arts as a learning and engagement tool increases the confidence and academic success of our students.

During our latest PD adventure, we partnered with P.S. ARTS to host an interactive training with the teachers of Avenal Elementary School. P.S. ARTS’ Darryl King, who serves seven Turnaround Arts: California schools as a Regional Coach, shared:

“At the heart of the arts, is love. P.S. ARTS believes that differentiating learning opportunities for teachers is how we communicate that love and hold space for educators to develop as committed practitioners of the arts. It is our unique ability to customize our coaching strategies, from teacher training, to one-on-one mentoring, to match the culture and needs of each individual school.”

We customized our latest teacher workshop by starting with dance. We like to boogie and we love to amp up our energy for the learning ahead.

At various dancing intervals – we paused the music and asked teachers to pair up for some introductory dialogue.

We asked them a few questions:

  • What was your school like before Turnaround Arts?
  • What did it feel like or look like?
  • How is your school improving through Turnaround Arts?
  • What does that feel like or look like?

Our final prompt:

  • What one word would you use to describe where you see your arts-rich school of the future? Create a tableau — a frozen group picture — demonstrating it.

One of our favorite tableaus represented strength.

Our teachers see their future arts-rich school as strong and powerful.

Principal Blanca Rodriguez knows why. 

“Teachers at Avenal Elementary School benefit greatly from these Turnaround Arts: California workshops. They get hands-on experience by trying techniques with their peers. They have the opportunity to ask questions for clarity and gain feedback on what they have already begun to implement in their classrooms.”

In their fourth year as a Turnaround Arts school, Avenal Elementary boasts some of  the highest annual growth rate in student test scores of any school in their district, with particular growth for English Language Learners. Workshops like this encourage teachers to sustain and deepen the integration of the arts into their classrooms.

As our teachers and principals use the arts as a learning and engagement tool, the reading, language, math, critical thinking, and social skills of our students begin to improve. We’re taking the steps to catalyze a positive and strong school environment where students are motivated to learn and teachers are eager to teach.

Midway through our Avenal workshop, Darryl King shared a refresher of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), an arts-based strategy that many of our partner schools have implemented school-wide.

The VTS method encourages educators to ask three open-ended questions about visual art:

  1. What’s going on in this picture?
  2. What do you see that makes you say that?
  3. What more can we find?

Unlike some standardized tests and processes of rote memorization, these open-ended questions encourage students to closely look at an artwork, vocalize details they observe, and back up their comments using visual evidence. VTS fosters their ability to think critically while increasing their speaking and listening skills.

Teachers left the PD excited to return to their classroom and use tableau and VTS to support student learning.

It’s absolutely clear. We’re building student and teacher skills now to guide Avenal Elementary into a strong, and certainly arts-rich, future.

 

17 Mar

Arts (Integration) in Action at Sierra Prep!

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Arts Specialists, Classroom Teachers, Principals, Professional Development, School Environment, Strategic Approach

By Jacob Campbell, Program Manager for Turnaround Arts: California

I recently made a trip out to Santa Ana, CA, to see how Sierra Preparatory Academy’s first year as a Turnaround Arts: California partner school has been going, and I was blown away by the infusion of arts projects and instructional strategies that have begun to permeate all areas of this special school.

Read More “Arts (Integration) in Action at Sierra Prep!”
22 Nov

SBAC scores on the rise at Mary Chapa Academy!

Posted by Turnaround Arts: California in Principals

An interview with Principal Sonia Arámburo

What is the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC)? What kinds of things does it measure
In the transition to the Common Core State Standards, California selected the SBAC as its statewide assessment tool. Unlike the former California Standards Tests (CSTs), which were made up of multiple choice questions and answers, the SBAC is a computer-based test that measures students’ knowledge of English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics standards. The SBAC uses multiple sources of information to assess a range of skills, including listening, reading, speaking, writing, research, inquiry, problem-solving, modeling, and data analysis. By answering in paragraph form vs. selecting multiple choice options, students are tasked with analyzing a given problem and demonstrating their understanding of it by citing evidence.

Read More “SBAC scores on the rise at Mary Chapa Academy!”