H498: Music & Visual Art for All K-5 Students
On Tuesday, March 28th, Arts Caucus Chair Rep. Becky Carney filed H498 with other primary sponsors Rep. Kyle Hall, Rep. Jeffrey Elmore, and Rep. Erin Paré, which would direct public-school boards across the state to provide BOTH Music and Visual Art instruction to all K-5 students in North Carolina. This bill already has bipartisan support with 41 total sponsors, 29 Democrats and 12 Republicans. Arts North Carolina helped craft this legislation in partnership with Rep. Carney and Arts Education Leadership Coalition member organizations. We are proud to endorse H498 and add it to our legislative requests for ARTS Day and the 2023-2024 NC General Assembly session.
Specifically, this bill would direct local school boards to provide all students kindergarten through grade five, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year, instruction in both Music and Visual Arts that aligns with the Standard Course of Study and meets the following criteria:
- Occurs at least one day out of every five instructional days.
- Is taught by a licensed music/visual arts education instructor.
- Instructional sessions shall be at least 30 consecutive minutes.
- Classes shall be no larger than the maximum classroom size for each grade.
On average in North Carolina 1 out of every 20 K-5 public school students is not enrolled in both Music and Visual Arts1, which equates to thousands of children that are not provided the same educational opportunities as their peers. Arts education is not just about teaching how to think creatively. These classes have a tremendous impact on social emotional learning, and in recent studies they have been shown to improve student behavior2.
But how can North Carolina afford this? In 2018, in response to a law that was reducing K-3 class sizes (which required more classroom teachers, leaving less money for Music, Visual Art, P.E, etc.), the NC General Assembly passed SL-2018-2 which provided school districts with funding for one Program Enhancement Teacher or PET (Music, Visual Art, P.E, etc.) for every 191 K-5 students. In 2023 this allocation for Music, Visual Arts and Physical Education teachers is fully phased in and now equal to over $250 million.
A vast majority of students attend elementary school in a district with more than 95% of K-5 students enrolled in both Music and Visual Arts. And most students in the districts with less than 95% enrollment in those courses, still go to school in districts with over 90% enrolment in Music and Visual Arts. It is a relatively small number of students in a few districts that are being denied access to arts instruction at a formative and consequential time in their lives. This leaves them less equipped for success than the other 95% of elementary school students statewide.
Small school systems with few students may face some staffing and logistical challenges providing Music and Visual Arts to every K-5 student. However, H??? would empower the State Board of Education and the Department of Public Instruction to assist those districts in finding solutions using the funding that has already been allocated by the General Assembly and fulfil every NC student’s constitutional right to a sound basic education.
NC Department of Public Instruction, State Education Directors of Arts Education (SEDAE), and Quadrant Research 1 Investigating the Causal Effects of Arts Education, Daniel H. Bowen & Brian Kisida, 2022 2