• If you need a nomination form, please go here.
• If you need an application, please go here.
• If you have further questions, please view the Frequently Asked Questions page.

TEACHER APPLICATION QUESTIONS

Make sure you have carefully read the entire application before writing your answers.

1. Please describe your arts program and all its distinguishing characteristics in full detail. Your responses to questions #2 - #6 should support and clarify the program you have just described in question #1. If you are a Generalist, please describe how the arts are an essential component in your teaching. Are the arts integrated into several subject areas and/or taught as discrete subjects?
This answer sets the framework for the rest of your application. You are describing your overall program, what makes it work and how the arts are taught within this framework. If you are a Generalist, the Judges are interested in the distinction between how you teach the arts as a discrete art form and how you then integrate this art form into the other core subjects. Your succeeding answers should build on what you say here. Take some time with this answer.

2. Please answer according to category (Specialist or Generalist).
For Specialist Teachers - Help us understand your arts program by including one unit from your yearlong curriculum for one grade level/art discipline. If it is sequential, please illustrate that and include three lesson plans from that unit. List expected student outcomes and assessment tools for the unit. If you use published curriculum, please include both the title and any training you may have received to use it. If you don't use published curriculum, how do you address each of the VAPA standard strands?
Most Specialist candidates who apply teach one arts discipline. If you teach more than one arts discipline, choose one and then select a teaching unit for this arts discipline to describe in your answer. Select three lesson plans from this unit to describe. It is preferable that your lessons build on each other in sequence. If that is the case, illustrate sequencing with your selection. Describe how you assess your students' learning and what your expected outcomes are. We are encouraged by the use of arts curriculum but realize that not all teachers and schools have access to it. There have been many instances where the teacher had curriculum material but did not know how to use it, so we ask that you describe your curriculum training.

For Generalist Teachers - Help us understand your program by presenting one arts integrated unit from your yearlong curriculum. Include three lesson plans from that unit which illustrate your use of arts. Clearly demonstrate how you effectively integrate a rich and vigorous arts program into your other subjects. List expected student outcomes and assessment tools for the unit. If you use published curriculum, please include both the title and any training you may have received to use it.
Generalist teachers typically use the arts by integrating them into other core subjects. However, the Judges also want to know that the arts are taught as a separate body of knowledge and not just used as a vehicle to teach the core subjects. Select a unit for one core subject for which you integrate the arts and describe it. (I.e. integrating the visual arts into the teaching of English.) Then select three lesson plans from this unit. It is preferable that your lessons build on each other in sequence. If that is the case, illustrate sequencing with your selection. Describe how you assess your students' learning and what your expected outcomes are. We are encouraged by the use of arts curriculum but realize that not all teachers and schools have access to it. There have been many instances where the teacher had curriculum but did not know how to use it, so we ask that you describe your curriculum training.

3. Please describe your school environment, the challenges it presents, and how you make the best use of the physical and financial resources available to you. Refer to financial, parental, and/or administrative support, working space, traveling schedule, etc. How do you overcome obstacles in these areas?
This question allows the Judges to understand both your available resources and your lack of resources. Some teachers have an abundance of resources and in those cases we want to know how you are making full use of them. Too many teachers have few resources and here we want to know how your creative and innovative ideas make up for this lack. Resources can mean facilities, supplies, financial support, strong administrative, community or parent support.

4. Describe any professional development or professional activities you have participated in within the last three years that augment your teaching of the arts, and any training you have received about arts education, including use of specific curriculum. How have you incorporated these experiences into your teaching practices?
Professional development and activities can take many forms. It may be training to understand the arts standards, or arts training for a Generalist teacher making it possible to bring a higher level of teaching to the classroom. A Music teacher may play in a jazz band to keep up her own skill, or conduct the local choir. It can be enhancement of the teaching of the arts or of your professional knowledge and performance of an arts discipline. In all cases we want to know how this professional development or activities have added to your teaching practices.

5. List opportunities that you provide to your students to perform/exhibit the arts in their school and community. In addition to your classroom work, what other contributions do you make to your school, district or community?
An important part of the arts experience for students is performance or exhibiting work. In this question we are asking you to describe opportunities during the year for your students to display their growing arts expertise, whether it is in a performing arts performance or visual arts display.

6. How do you use the state standards for the arts? Please give specific examples. If you teach in a private school, please describe the standards you employ and give specific examples. (Content Standards can be found at )
We are not asking you to list the standards. (We already know them, thank you.) We are asking you to describe how you integrate the standards into your teaching. Two or three examples would amplify your answer. If you teach in a private school, please describe the standards that you do use and how you employ them in your teaching.

SCHOOL APPLICATION QUESTIONS

Make sure you have carefully read the entire application before writing your answers.

1. Please describe the arts program at your school and all its distinguishing characteristics in full detail. Be specific. Your responses to questions #2 - #8 should support and clarify the program you have just described in question #1. If you have a school (or schools) within your school, describe the arts program across the entire campus.
This answer sets the framework for the rest of your application. You are describing your overall program, what makes it work and how the arts are taught within this framework. The Judges are interested in the arts program for the entire school not just the arts magnet you may have within the school. If you have more than one school at your site, it would be useful to describe how they work together. Your succeeding answers should build on what you say here. Take some time with this answer.

2. Are the arts taught as discrete subjects, or integrated into several subject areas or both? Please describe.
The Judges are interested in all the different ways the arts are taught at your school. The Judges are interested in how both the Generalists and Specialist Teachers at your school teach the arts as a discrete art form. In the case of the Specialist Teachers it is usually taught only as a discrete core subject and in some depth. In the case of your Generalist teachers it is taught as a discrete subject first so the children understand the art form before it is integrated into other core subjects. We would also like you to describe which core subjects are integrated with a core arts discipline and at what grade levels.

3. Include three sequential grade level examples that illustrate the teaching of one art discipline. Describe expected student outcomes and your methods of assessment for these examples in reference to the state standards. If applicable, show how your school integrates the arts with other core curriculum subjects.
We are asking you to choose just one core subject, such as English, and show with three sequential grade level examples how the arts are integrated into that subject. However, the Judges also want to know if the arts are taught as discrete subjects as well. For each example, describe your methods of assessment and your expected student outcomes.

4. Does your school use professional artists in your arts program and/or make use of arts facilities in your community (i.e., through assemblies, workshops in classrooms, artists-in-residence, field trips and/or museum programs)? If so, describe how, how often and who receives these services. Are the teachers actively participating and engaged? How do these activities support the curriculum?
This question asks how you make use of arts programs that you may buy, but also all other resources in the community that you may take advantage of, such as a bank that displays student art work, or the local museum arts education program. More importantly we are asking how these programs add to the existing arts programs.

5. Please describe your school environment, the challenges it presents and how you make the best use of the physical and financial resources available to you to support your arts program. How do you overcome obstacles in these areas?
We seek to understand both your available resources and your lack of resources. Some schools have an abundance of resources, and in those cases we want to know how you are making full use of them. Too many schools have few resources, and here we want to know your creative and innovative ideas to make up for this lack. Please describe any fund raising efforts including grant writing in your answer. Resources can mean facilities, supplies, financial support, strong district, community or parent support.

6. Please describe any teacher training in arts education that has taken place in the last three years and which teachers were involved. If the teacher training was for specific arts curriculum, please identify that curriculum.
This question is pretty clear. We ask about the training for using the curriculum because the Judges have visited some schools where the curriculum was there, but the teachers had no idea how to use the books. Please also state whether or not the curriculum includes assessment.

7. Describe your school's arts program five years ago and the changes you have made to reach your current arts program. (If your program is less than five years old, describe it since its inception.) What are the goals for your school's dance, music, theatre and visual arts programs for the next five years? Where are you in the process of achieving those goals?
The answer to this question gives the judges the context for your school's development of its arts program. Your description of future goals helps inform us of your ultimate objective and how you plan to reach it. Since arts programs are always in progress, there will always be future goals.

8. How do you use the state standards for the arts? Please give specific examples. If this is a private school, please describe the standards you employ and give specific examples. (http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/index.asp)
We are not asking you to list the standards. (We already know them, thank you.) We are asking you to describe how your teachers integrate the standards into their teaching and how this is encouraged by the administration. Two or three examples would amplify your answer. If your school is a private school, please describe the standards that are used, how your teachers use them and how they are encouraged to use them.

Established in 1982, the Bravo Awards are one of the many arts education programs provided by the Music Center to hundreds of thousands of students and teachers each year. The Music Center is dedicated to advancing the quality and scope of arts education in Los Angeles County.