ALL IN THE FAMILY

Pike View Elementary Principal, Melanie Landrum, shares what it means to her to be part of the AR A+ family!
 

Pike View Elementary School, North Little Rock AR

My name is Melanie Landrum and I am the principal of Pike View Elementary in the North Little Rock School District.  We are currently in our second year of implementing the A+ philosophy at our school.  I was very excited when I first heard Paul Leopoulos speaking about bringing A+ to the North Little Rock School District.  Our staff already had a great love for the arts so the arts integration into our everyday teaching and learning was a natural fit for us.

Our first year of implementation was exciting!  Common Core gave us the freedom to integrate literacy and math with science and social studies.  It was a natural extension to add the arts!  We wanted to extend the arts into our after school program piggy backing on our after school tutoring for students who were experiencing academic difficulties.  We partnered with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and our local high school Arts Teachers to offer Visual Arts, Dance, Drama, Violin and Make Up/Set Design after school one day a week.  Students practiced, attended the high school musical production and had end of the year performances. 

Pike View staff, 2013 AR A+ Summer Conference in Clarksville, AR

This past summer, we attended our second A+ Summer Institute at the University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas.  First, the campus is beautiful and our living facilities lent themselves to having a great time together but gave us the privacy we needed to rest and reflect. Second, we got to know some people from across the state that were also implementing A+. Finally,  we were able to learn so much more about ways to integrate the arts and we had time to actually begin planning our first unit of study!  This is time that teachers don't often get during the school year.

This year, we decided as a staff that having the arts extension after school was a good start but we only reached those students who were being tutored or had parents that could provide transportation.  We wanted to open the arts focus time to every student.  We got the approval of our district to have the last hour of the day from 1:30-2:30 on Wednesdays and Fridays for Exploratory Classes. We also wanted to incorporate science and engineering with our arts focus (STEAM). 

Pike View students, "Environmental Landscapes" project

Thanks to the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Thea Foundation, the University of Arkansas Little Rock and our gifted and talented teachers, we now have Arts and Crafts; Chess; Computer Applications; Dance' Drama and Theater; Health and Fitness; iPad Applications; Journalism/Newspaper; Literature Discussion, Origami, Orchestra, Science and Engineering and Visual Arts offered two days a week for grades 3-5!  Kindergarten through second grade teachers are doing exploratory units in their classrooms on these same days. All exploratory classes are integrating literacy and math when appropriate. Student motivation is high this year and that carries over into all of their studies! We are so excited to be a part of the A+ family!