Tempe doubles arts grants for local schools

Mayor Corey D. Woods | City of Tempe Official website

By Mohave Today Report

Sep 22, 2023

This year, the City of Tempe has renewed its commitment to grow local arts education by doubling funding for this year's Arts in Schools Grants.

These grants provide fine arts teachers in Tempe with funds to work with professional artists and purchase specialized arts equipment. This fall, an investment of nearly $60,000 will be distributed among 25 schools for a total of 42 grants, which is nearly double the amount given to schools in 2022.

Grant funds provide local teachers with funds to contract professional artists and purchase specialty arts equipment. Examples include bringing guest music clinicians and visual artists into schools, hosting master classes, and purchasing specialized equipment such as accessible stands for ukuleles or wearable microphones in a range of skin tones for theater productions.

Arts education helps encourage imaginative problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence, as well as promotes arts literacy as a powerful means of self-expression. The grant award announcement coincided with National Arts in Education Week (Sept. 11-17), which calls attention to the transformative power of the arts in education.

“Arts education is critical to ensuring that our students become well-rounded individuals for the rest of their lives," said Tempe City Councilmember Berdetta Hodge, who also serves on the Tempe Union High School District Governing Board. "The arts enable our youth to be more imaginative, creative and better able to communicate with others. I am extremely pleased to see our city double down on efforts to create more equitable access to the arts for all through these grants.”

School Arts Grants are administered by Tempe Community Arts. To receive grant funds, visual and performing arts teachers submitted applications detailing their proposals. Schools receiving grants are located in Tempe Elementary School District, Kyrene School District, Tempe Union High School District and New School for Arts and Academics.

Earlier this year, Tempe awarded 35 grants for a total of nearly $225,000 to nonprofit organizations and artist collectives providing inclusive arts and culture programming in Tempe. The goal of the grant program is to infuse long-term growth of the arts in Tempe by funding high-quality, community-initiated projects for arts organizations, schools, artist collectives and teachers.

For more information about the grants, programs and schools that received funding, visit tempe.gov/ArtsGrants.

Congratulations to this year's Arts in Schools grant recipients:

Music (Band/Orchestra/Mariachi/Choir/Steel Drum) - Guest Music Clinicians

Broadmor Elementary

Corona de Sol High School - 3 grants

Fees College Preparatory Middle School - 2 grants

Geneva Epps Mosely Middle School

Kyrene Middle School - 3 grants

Marcos de Niza High School

McClintock High School - 2 grants

Mosely Middle School

Tempe High School