Creative Arts Charter School

Our public charter school is focused on using the arts, including visual, music, dance and theater. We aim to teach all subjects in our K-8 school through project-based methods with arts-integration. Our school was founded by parents in 1994, and it is one of the oldest charter schools in California. It is a high-perfoming non-profit school with a highly diverse group of students. We use ideas adapted from studies including Harvard's Project Zero with regard to arts integration. We also have recently done a lot of work as a staff in collaborating to find more ways to support our students of color and those with special needs, including focus on Zaretta Hammond's text, Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. We have found that our work in integrating the arts has been a powerful tool in reaching all students and helping them become inspired critical thinkers.

Our school has a beautiful garden cared for by parents, but it is currently somewhat underutilized by our staff. Potentially there is room to use the garden to further science exploration in the classroom in all grade levels, as well as use cooking as a means of learning through making.