A group of Chicago seventh graders stood in a circle rolling their shoulders and taking deep breaths before splitting up into small groups — some going into an old theater, while others found a spot in an echoey hallway.
It was early spring and they had just started working on their final performance. It was to be a self-written play of sorts called “Our Story,” in which students came up with skits, dances and songs.
In one skit, a thin boy sits on a chair looking out in the distance, clearly troubled. Three other boys try to convince him to hang out. At first he refuses, but then he goes along, throwing his arms over their shoulders.
When asked why the group chose to tell this sad story, they are shy. “We just had a little piece of paper and just randomly chose it,” one says.
But by late May, when they take the stage in front of other students and parents, they are proud of the work and eager to talk about what it means to have shared their feelings with their classmates.
“I have been through some things too and it can be hard,” says Dylan Acuna, one of the seventh grade actors. “It definitely has given me a different perspective.”
A spotlight on arts education
Their school, Reilly Elementary on the Northwest Side, is among the few Chicago public schools with rich arts programming. Less than 17% of elementary schools have three or more certified art teachers, Chicago Public Schools data shows. At Reilly, there are teachers for art, music and theater. Nearly half of all Chicago schools have only one arts teacher position, and some of those are not filled yet.
In Chicago, arts education is determined by a school’s size and, critically, by how much an individual principal prioritizes it.
But leaders are questioning whether it should be this way. As the school year starts, district leaders and the Chicago Teachers Union are putting a spotlight on arts education. In ongoing union contract negotiations “more art teachers” is a rallying cry. At the same time, CPS’ director of arts education is spearheading a new plan to replace the existing 12-year-old blueprint.
Yet even as leaders focus on art education, the district’s only pre-professional art high school is struggling as it weathers budget cuts.
That gets to the heart of a conundrum for CPS: How does it go from offering the bare minimum — just this year Schools CEO Pedro Martinez instructed schools to hire at least one arts teacher — to a district where students have a rich arts education. This is a especially challenging when students have so many competing needs and money is always tight.
César Torruella, CPS’ executive director of arts education, says arts instruction has shown its value, improving test scores and providing students with social-emotional and developmental skills.
“I can speak from my own experience; I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my choir teacher,” he said. “Arts education is not just to create artists, but also to create better people in this world.”
The students at Reilly, who are mostly Latino and from low-income families, offered up other reasons for arts education. For many of them, the skils they created offered a chance to communicate how bad bullying felt.
Teacher Emily Pineda said she came up with the idea for the play after the pandemic. She noticed students were struggling getting along and fitting in. She hoped an activity like this would bring them together.
Luis Quizhpi says his skit is about something that connects most of the students. “It is just soccer and soccer all the time,” he says.
Many of his friends come from poor families and see soccer as a way to earn money to help their families, he says. But they don’t have money for teams or other things that would help elevate them.
Nathan Rosales plays the sad-looking boy in the skit — the one where the boys had originally said the topic was chosen at random. But just before going on stage, Nathan shared that the skit is about how he felt when his parents announced plans to divorce. He says his friends had noticed he was acting distant.
“They tried to comfort me as much as they could. They were always with me, they bought me stuff,” he said. “It made me feel better because I knew somebody was there for me.”
Nathan and his friend Dylan Acuna said they took away the lesson that everyone faces their own struggles.
Reilly Principal Marcelo Costilla Jr., said he prioritizes the arts because they give students a sense of belonging and alternative ways of expressing themselves.
“Everyone has a story to tell, no matter your language, no matter your ability,” he said.
He also said students shouldn’t have to wait until high school to see if they are passionate or good at something, noting that many won’t get opportunities to participate in arts outside of school.
“I hope they take this not only for now, but for the future … that platforms open up to them, whether here or in high school or in college,” Costilla said.
Moving arts beyond the bare minimum
Over the past 20 years, arts education in Chicago and across the country has suffered as schools, eager to raise test scores, focused on core academic subjects, along with a shortage of certified art teachers, according to a 2021 report by the American Academy of Art & Sciences.
CPS set itself apart as a national leader in understanding the value of art education and investment after creating an expansive arts plan in 2012, said Nicole Upton, executive director of Ingenuity, a nonprofit founded to assess and support arts education in Chicago. That plan established a goal of one art teacher for every 350 students. In the baseline report, 56% of schools met the standard; in the most recent report from 2023, 73% did.
But even with more staff now, she said principals struggle scheduling art classes and finding teachers, especially in dance and music. The vast majority of art classes in CPS are in visual arts.
As a result, there are schools like Reilly, with only 530 students, that offer music, art and theater, and other schools with many more students that only offer only visual arts.
“So ultimately, having multiple disciplines, I think it comes down to the school leader and their vision for the school,” Upton said.
When Martinez took the helm at CPS in 2021, he seemed surprised to learn some schools had no art teacher. He made it his mission to make sure each school had at least one this year. He instructed schools to use one of their positions for an art teacher.
“The CEO and the board have really prioritized making sure that every kid has access to arts,” CPS Chief Talent Officer Ben Felton said. “From a staffing perspective, we have more qualified, licensed art teachers in front of kids than at any point in recent history.”
CPS has 115 more certified art teachers compared to two years ago, Felton said.
But there are still 50 schools without an art teacher this fall, according to CPS data. High-needs schools have the most trouble filling vacancies, Felton said.
Torruella said CPS’ new art plan will be crafted based on student and community engagement. But he has already heard people want to see a range of art classes, especially in the high schools.
But taking the arts from the bare minimum to this next level will be difficult.
Forty-seven percent of schools have only one art teacher, including 21 high schools, but some of these are not filled, according to CPS data from late August. Most of these schools serve fewer than 500 students, raising questions about how to provide a variety of art classes and higher-level art classes in schools with low enrollment.
Many schools supplement their art education by partnering with organizations, such as Broadway in Chicago or the Lyric Opera, but for these partnerships to work well, Ingenuity and the district say, a certified teacher should be on hand. For example, at Reilly, a teaching artist from Imagination Theater was in the room with Pineda, supporting students.
In contract talks, the CTU wants the district to agree to a centrally-funded cadre of art teachers, such as dance or music teachers, who can travel among several small schools.
The Chicago High School for the Arts
Chicago Public Schools also is struggling to support a clear path for students who are more serious about their art education.
At The Chicago High School for the Arts, students spend six hours on academics and then for three hours students learn visual arts, music, dance, theater or creative writing from professionals, said Tina Boyer Brown, ChiArts executive director. CPS funds the academic part of the day and the arts instruction is paid for through private fundraising.
But this year Brown said the school is still trying to figure out how to confront a $500,000 deficit. She has laid off one teacher, but has yet to do more, fearing it would be too detrimental to the educational program.
Brown said ChiArts got 6% less in funding from CPS this year, despite a slight increase in enrollment. The arts programming also was cut back because of reduced fundraising and increased labor costs.
She wants to believe unequivocally that school district officials value ChiArts and see it as important in the continuum of art education in the city, but she’s not so sure.
These are “young artists who are willing to devote 2,500 hours over the course of their high school careers to studying theater, to learning to paint, to dance, to play viola,” Boyer Brown said. “They deserve the kind of support that one gets if you go to a very well-resourced school.”
Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on X @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter.