Fund The Arts

Ms. May has been teaching visual arts here at Roosevelt for 4 years now, and she offers 2-d art beginning, intermediate, and advanced. Another art teacher teaches 3-d and sculpture. There is also a teacher for animation. The art students from her class sell stickers and submit different pieces to Scholastic. She is very grateful for the budget and the supplies the district provided over the pandemic but says she needs more because the student population growing bigger each year. She’s hoping to have extra money so there can be a structure built to display student artwork safely in the building. She also wants to bring in artists to help with her class, and for student art to be out in the community more which takes funding. Ms. May said that the district has done a lot to increase staff for the arts, but falls short of making sure funds are sufficient for supplies needed to run the program. She also added that her students make amazing work, but it’s challenging to get it displayed properly in the public. She also wants her students to be more engaged in art and to even make money from selling their artwork.

Mr. Margolis has been the band teacher at Roosevelt for 23 years. He teaches concert band, jazz band, and guitar/keyboard. The concert band goes to the Warner Pacific Band festival and the PIL band festival for competitions. Both the jazz bands go to West Salem, U of P, Pleasant Hill, and Mt. Hood for jazz festivals. Margolis is not very comfortable with the school's budget every year because it is not enough to sustain a band program. He pays for a lot of opportunities his program.

From sheet music to transportation, admission fees or music specialists, or even extra accessories for the guitar/keyboard class, Mr. Margolis pays for a lot of it out of his own pocket. He understands that the school is limited with its funding, and sees it more as an issue to be taken up with the district. He notices the difference between the arts programs in Washington and the ones here in Oregon. The programs in Washington get more funding, while there is a lack of funding in Oregon, especially in Portland Public Schools. Each school has to fundraise in order to survive as a program in Portland Public, which is something that should be fixed.

Ms. Lane has been teaching theater arts since 2007. She teaches beginning and intermediate-acting, advanced acting, and senior theater. Ms. Lane also teaches stagecraft, and theater production and management. The Thespian Troupe participates in regionals which also include competitions for stage building. She is comfortable with the school district's budget due to her unique situation. She doesn’t get direct funds, but because she is a CTE certified teacher she gets CTE funds. The productions however are all self-supported. She wants more money to pay for student scholarships. Lane makes sure most of the events the Troupe attends are free to students who need them to be (with the exception of one that happens once every other summer). Theatre troupe fundraisers require time and work, but they are the only guarantee that the funding won’t be an issue.

The International Thespian Festival, which Roosevelt attends every other summer, is very expensive, causing her to look up ways to reduce the cost so her students so everyone can have a great experience regardless of the cost. She also finds that it is difficult to teach both acting and technical stage development courses by herself. Bottom line, if the department had more funding she would be able to hire a technical director to help out with the design and tech classes so she can focus on her acting classes, and make sure each and every student can get what they need.