Hello, my name is Tanya Plaza and I am the Art teacher at St. Luke Catholic Elementary School. I have been an Art teacher for 15 years. I have studied art for most of my life and am honored and blessed to be able to share what I know with my students. I came to St. Luke's 5 years ago. I was drawn to this school because of their desire to teach the whole student, not just academically, but spiritually, emotionally and artistically as well. I can truly say that I love every aspect of Art and as a mom of three, I definitely see the value that Art adds to education and academic achievement. Exposure to art at a young age provides not only a creative outlet for kids, but can be an emotional outlet as well. Art can, and has been proven to enhance critical thinking skills, as well as improving visual thinking skills, while teaching kids how to interpret and use visual information. I am passionate about exposing kids to Art in an effort to inspire them to excel both in and out of the classroom in both knowledge and confidence. It is my mission to foster, not only existing talent, but those students with a strong desire to learn, not just about art, but the history of art as well. As my students develop skills in art through repetition and practice, they begin to grow confidence in themselves. My hope is to inspire imagination and have my students look at the world as a canvas of possibilities.

The library and librarian, Lydia Tinder, provide support for teachers and students. Each class is scheduled for library time each week. All students in school are also able to check out books from the library. During this time of COVID, books are brought to the class every other week rather than students coming to the library. All classes are taught about taking care of books and learn about some of the parts of the book. Storytimes are provided mainly for Kindergarten, First and Second grade classes each week. Storytimes consist of poetry and stories, sometimes topical, for a specific time of year. Library instruction is given mainly for Third grade through Eighth grade students. Aside from more detailed work on the parts of the book, instruction might consist of training and work with dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, the Dewey Decimal system, catalog, database and website searching, as well as search strategies for research. Book talks are provided and as well as materials for assignments on book reports, biographies, state or Mission reports and other subject reports. The library collection provides support for this work and is being updated all of the time. Mrs Tinder is a retired public librarian who is volunteering in her twelfth year at the school.