Una McAlinden

Yes – when you live in Washington State! With more cloudy days than sunshine – you often have to sing, dance, act, and create in the rain! Yes, these activities are usually happening in buildings, but the rain is ubiquitous. And during our coldest wettest spring on record, we’re singing the praises of the arts this month as Washington State celebrates Arts Education Month in May.

From the grand Olympic mountains to the lush rolling hills of the Palouse, support of arts education is heard in harmony from the Governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the School Directors Association, city and county governments, state and local PTAs, local media outlets, and from communities across the state.

ArtsEd Washington (the Washington Alliance for Arts Education) led the efforts to begin highlighting and recognizing the importance of arts education back in 2006 by memorializing an “Arts Education Week” during the third week in May. 

Our goal is to develop broad and sustained support for arts education so that every student at every school receives sequential arts instruction.

By 2009, efforts and interest had expanded the recognition to a month-long celebration filled with outreach activities. With each passing year, outreach tools and resources have been added to the ArtsEd Washington’s Arts Education Month toolkit, creating a robust community advocacy package that allows individuals and organizations across the state to take action and seek arts education support in their communities.

Each year, more join our cause and the choir singing the praises of arts education is rapidly growing. Start teaching your community to sing in perfect harmony for arts education. Here are some tips for building your own robust advocacy recognition program:

1) Design Your Look. Branding is important. As we discovered, consistency means your logo will be showing up everywhere – on posters, on other websites, even as people’s Facebook profile pictures!

2) Go Big or Go Home! In other words, don’t be shy about asking for support – and that doesn’t mean for money. We don’t seek any specific funding for this effort. Simply promote “joining the cause.” Approach the Governor, elected officials, state educational associations, arts agencies, and other related partners asking them simply to articulate their support.

3) Take the Lead. Model for your members and constituents what they can and should do at the local level. From soliciting a resolution to requesting a pledge of support, it should come both from the top down and the bottom up.

4) Make it Easy! Provide accessible information and tools upfront that make it easy for your members and constituents to plug and play. Including sample marketing materials such as press releases, e-news briefs, proclamations, letters, and other templates that promote key messaging in the toolkit means that taking action is easy and quick.

5) Leverage, leverage. Keep the efforts going beyond Arts Education Month. Turn the support into action, leveraging pledges into impacts and getting the arts on the regular agenda. With a little work and planning you can establish a successful annual and ongoing arts education campaign. Don’t be deterred by a few dark clouds overhead. Just get out your umbrella and start singing in the rain today!

For more information on Arts Education Month in Washington State, visit artsedwashington.org. Find the Arts Education Month toolkit at artsedwashington.org/news-events/arts-education-month/aem-tool-kit.