The Arts Education Master Plan (AEMP) is San Francisco Unified School District’s blueprint for integrating the arts into each student’s daily curriculum. It details why and how the district will provide an education in which students accrue quality knowledge of the arts and creative experiences from day one of preschool through their senior year in high school. As Ruth Asawa, San Francisco artist and pioneer arts educator puts it:
“Just as athletes need to exercise every day, children need to make art every day.”
Published in 2006, the master plan was the product of eight months of research, interviews, surveys and focus groups. It reflects the views of more than 1,500 students, parents, teachers, administrators, arts providers, and civic and business leaders. Driven by a spirit of collaboration, it commits the SFUSD to making dance, drama, music, visual and literary arts an important part of each student’s academic career. It calls for a sequential, comprehensive arts education program that reflects the high quality of San Francisco’s artistic landscape. The guiding principle of this plan is that all students deserve both access to and equity in arts education.
Writers and editors of this publication: Antigone Trimis, AEMP Implementation Manager, SFUSD; and Susan Stauter, Artistic Director, SFUSD
Original manuscript written and compiled by: Kevin Marlatt, AEMP Project Director
Contributing writer to original manuscript: Marianne Locke, Executive Director, Young Imaginations
Editors: Geoffrey Link and Marjorie Beggs, San Francisco Study Center
Designer: Lenny Limjoco, San Francisco Study Center
Copyright © 2006, 2008 San Francisco Unified School District
Front cover: Photograph by Andi Wong.
Back cover: City Hall viewed from Davies Symphony Hall, with artwork created by Rooftop Elementary School
students hanging from the tree in the foreground. Photograph by Andi Wong.
Photographs: pages 3, 4, 7, 14, 17 by Andi Wong; page 10 by Dan Ryan; pages 6, 11, 13, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25 by Larry
Rosenberg; page 12 by Kevin Marlatt/Blue Bear School of Music; page 15, 18, 23 by Aiko Cuneo; page 21 by
Scott Chernis, Youth Speaks; page 26, San Francisco Ballet; page 28, Intersection for the Arts.