Arts Achieve! School Profiles

County: Palm Beach
Number of Students: 556

Students served:

Hispanic 16%
White 9%
Black 65%
Other 6%
Gifted 3%
ESE 9%
Attendance 88%

The Arts at Egret Lake Elementary:
Visual arts, music, drama, and dance are integrated in the core curriculum.

Our Schedule:
Visit Egret Lake’s website at: www.edline.net/pages/Egret_Lake_Elementary_School

A Visit to Our School:
Egret Lake Elementary provides its 556 students with dynamic arts-integrated instruction in all classes. Egret Lake’s educational objectives are to create opportunities for their students beyond the regular arts curriculum. Through arts integration, Egret Lake students are immersed in all aspects of theater, art, music, dance, kinesthetics, costume design, and puppetry while learning reading, writing, math, and science. Egret Lake is one of three schools in the School District of Palm Beach County participating in the Arts Integration Pilot Program sponsored by the Pew Foundation and the Community Foundation. Mary Palmer & Associates, LLC, is working with Egret Lake in its implementation of its arts integration program, Through the ARTS.

Our Special Arts Programs:
Egret Lake Elementary’s programming is driven by the Palm Beach County School District’s philosophy that music, visual arts, drama, and dance should be integrated into the core curriculum. Principal Becky Subin states, “by reaching the modalities of all learners, arts integration plays a major role in the learning that occurs”. Examples of Egret Lake’s arts integration include performances at Morse Geriatrics, Publix Spring Sing, Gospel Kids Jubilee at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Paver Systems, Mangrove Bay Assisted Living Facility, and Spotlight on Young Musicians. Recent art exhibitions include the Artigras Art Festival, Publix at the South Florida Fair, Palm Beach Post, Paver Systems, West Palm Beach Water Department, and an art show each trimester at the PTO Fine Arts Dinner Theaters.

Egret Lake Elementary is a Title I school that ensures its students are instructed by highly qualified, certified teachers who actively participate in ongoing professional development. To retain highly qualified teachers, administration utilizes a peer/buddy program, provides ongoing administrative support, and encourages and promotes continual staff development. During the 2006-07 school year Egret Lake implemented the Accelerated Academic Achievement (AAA) Program to reinforce the school’s strategies in their School Improvement Plan. The AAA Program helps determine successful strategy revisions that the school must incorporate in order to meet the instructional needs of ALL its students. Professional development and ongoing in-service and uniform assessments revolve around the adequate yearly progress needs of the students.

Awards:
For the fiscal year 2007-08, Egret Lake Elementary received a $ 40,000 grant from the Arts-in-Education Program. This program is sponsored by the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and supports activities that promote the arts as an integral part of education and lifelong learning. Egret Lake is utilizing the grant to provide staff development for teachers in grades K-2 with a focus on further integrating the arts across the curriculum.