What Do We Want? Art!

Started by Ocracoke resident, artist, and parent Nancy Leach, the online petition on change.org gathered 500 signatures in its first week. 

Nancy couldn't be at the commissioners meeting, so Cathy Scarborough stepped up to read the "Reinstate art classes at Ocracoke School" petition and a selection of comments from signers. 

"Beyond our strong 'feelings' that art be reinstated at Ocracoke School, there are compelling facts to indicate that art is an integral part of any PreK-12 education," the petition states before going on to list several of those compelling facts.

The petition got another comment on the spot. "People think you can't make a living with art," said commissioner John Fletcher. "But that's not true – you can make a living with art." He got no argument from the Ocracoke crowd, including Cathy, who said that's how she does it. 

Every time the petition gets signed (and it's not too late!), an email gets sent to board of commissioners chair Barry Swindell, state Rep. Paul Tine, Hyde County superintendent Randolph Latimore, Ocracoke's representative school board member David Tolson, county manager Bill Rich, Governor Pat McCrory, and the state board of education. 

Apparently, none of them have shared the petition-driven emails with school board chairperson, Thomas Whitaker. When I talked to him Monday morning, he told me that he had not seen or heard of the petition.

He also told me that the school board was going to go ahead and ask for raises. (They did. They were turned down.)

When I suggested that asking for more money for themselves was unpopular when Ocracoke School had just lost three teacher aides and an art teacher due to lack of money, he reminded me "we lost twenty-some positions on the mainland, including two art positions." 

"We're trying to get money – it's never left us that we're trying to get more money back in the system," he said. 

Whitaker said that he is looking to other school systems to see how they make room in their budget for art education.

"Art is very important to me, my family are mostly into music and art," he said. "We've got to work together on both sides to get more funding."

Meanwhile, on Ocracoke, the school kids are getting a little bit of arts instruction provided by Ocracoke Alive. (Apparently, nobody has told Whitaker much about the Arts Partnership, either. "I've heard something about that," he said, uncertainly. I offered to email him links to Current stories.)

David Tweedie is president of Ocracoke Alive, which is in the second week of its Arts Partnership, bringing local and visiting artists to Ocracoke School students for weekly lessons in arts and crafts. 

"We've got amazing support from the community in terms of volunteer hours," David told the commissioners last night. "But we had to raise $8000 for this 17-week program, and 95% of the donations came from private, off-island donors."

David encouraged the commissioners to find funding for art at Ocracoke School because the Arts Partnership is "not necessarily sustainable."

"Arts are a really important part of our community and livelihoods," he said. "I'd like you to reconsider funding the arts program."

Local parent and business owner Leslie Lanier also spoke at the meeting to thank Ocracoke Alive publicly for the Arts Partnership. She volunteered last week with the Pre-K through 2nd grade classes making bread with baker Lauren Strohl, and she dropped in on the older kids' critter-making class with Jean Skipper.

"The kids were so happy," she said. 

County manager Bill Rich presented the commissioners with a letter from the Ocracoke United Methodist youth group in which they ask to get art classes back at Ocracoke School. Rich met with the youth group kids on Sunday to tell them that he'd put the art funding issue on the agenda for the commissioner meeting. 

"In my opinion, [not having art] has pulled the heart out of Ocracoke," he said Monday afternoon before the meeting. "It's my responsibility to Ocracoke to talk about it. It's a huge concern, one of the biggest on Ocracoke and it needs to be discussed formally."

Bill asked the commissioners for authorization to go forward to try to find funding for Ocracoke School's art program. He estimates it will take about $40,000 to pay for an art teacher.

He told the commissioners that he saw three ways to look for funding: the first, getting more money from the state, "looks dismal."

His second suggestion was "What if Ocracoke needs to stand alone in art? We'll look for grant funding – maybe if we can find grants then Ocracoke Alive would continue with its program," he said. 

A third way would be if the county commissioners could directly fund the hiring of an art teacher. 

"I want to pursue these options and report back to the board before we make the budget for next year," he said. 

Commissioner John Fletcher suggested that there may be a mainland office position that could be cut so the money could be spent for a part-time art teacher. 

There was a little bit of mumbly discussion among the commissioners that was difficult to hear on the Ocracoke side of the amazing technology that links us to mainland meetings. ("Speak into your mikes!" is a recurrent grumble from Ocracoke.) Someone said he was in favor of the arts. There was more mumbling.

Finally Commissioner Earl Pugh's voice was heard clearly. "We can't mandate what the school board does," he said.  

Bill said he would investigate the best way to move forward. No motions were made.