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Alaska Department of Education & Early Development
The Arts Framework

Acknowledgments

This framework is based upon the Alaska Content Standards for the Arts and the National Standards for Arts Education. We wish to thank those who have gone before in developing frameworks. Our document outline owes much to the groups who developed Alaska Frameworks for math/science, English/language arts, and social studies. In addition, we drew heavily from the National Standards for Arts Education and arts frameworks from these states: California, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Wyoming.

Arts Framework Development Committee

Lisa Kljaich is a life-long Fairbanks resident who has taught general music with the Fairbanks School District for the past 13 years. Currently she teaches at the elementary school she attended as a child. Ms. Kljaich holds an MA in music education from the University of St. Thomas. She has enjoyed participating through the years in many of Fairbanks performing organizations, including Fairbanks Flutes, Fairbanks Light Opera Theatre, and the Fairbanks Symphony. She has also written and composed musicals for the Fairbanks Drama Association and Fairbanks Children's Theatre. Ms. Kljaich has also founded the Drama Project, a creative drama program, which hosts instructional classes such as the popular Young at Art Theatre. Ms. Kljaich is a member of the Alaska Orff Chapter, the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Music Educator's National Conference, and Alaska Music Educator's Association. She is president-elect of the Alaska Society of General Music. As a hobby, the arts occupy her evenings with quilting and piano accompaniment.

Elaine Larson is a music specialist in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District in Kenai, Alaska. She teaches in a primary school for K-2 students and special needs preschoolers. She also is an adjunct faculty member for the University of Alaska Anchorage, Kenai branch, where she teaches elementary music methods for undergraduate education majors. Her teaching career spans more than twenty years, and she has taught every level, including K-6 elementary general music, secondary band and choir, elementary band, preschool music, music for special needs children, and undergraduate and graduate levels in Montana, New Jersey, and Alaska. Elaine has advanced training in Orff Schulwerk and has been a presenter at numerous workshops and courses in New Jersey and Alaska. Elaine is past president of the Alaska Orff Chapter and the New Jersey Orff Chapter. She also served as Region III representative for Alaska Music Educator's Association. Her memberships include Music Educator's National Conference, Alaska Music Educator's Association, Society for General Music, American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Alaska Orff Chapter, Phi Delta Kappa, and Christ Lutheran Church, where she serves as the Handbell Choir Director.

Tom Litecky has been teaching in Alaska for sixteen years, five in villages in the Bethel area and the last eleven in the Mat-Su District. Currently, he teaches English at Palmer High School. He has been involved with the Alaska State Writing Consortium for thirteen years, serving two terms on the board of directors. In addition, he has been involved with the Alaska Council of Teachers of English and is a past president of that organization. Tom has provided in-service training on curriculum design, poetry, and integrating art into the English classroom in numerous districts around the state and made presentations at both state and national conferences. He spent a year in Australia on an International Teaching Fellowship in 1989. He has also served on his district's curriculum committee for the past ten years. Tom is in the process of completing a master's degree at the Breadloaf School of English and has served as the state coordinator for that program's rural teacher recruitment program. He has been published in the Alaska Council of Teachers of English newsletter, the Alaska Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development newsletter, and Breadloaf, and his poetry has appeared in Shaping the Landscape and Wheelwatch.

Connie Lutz has taught in Alaska for thirteen years and is a teacher of two dimensional, advanced placement, and serigraphy art classes at Colony High School in Palmer in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. At the district level she is the Art Curriculum Committee Chair, has been a member of the Curriculum Cabinet, served as the coordinator of the gifted program for two years, and in 1989, was the Mat-Su Teacher of the Year. At the state level, she was a charter board member of Very Special Arts Alaska, represented VSAP on the Department of Education Curriculum Cabinet, and served on the University of Alaska Anchorage College of Educators Advisory Committee. She is also the co-president of the Alaska Art Education Association and is Alaska's representative to the National Art Education Association Delegate Assembly. Connie has presented across the state, and her document on higher level thinking skills, which appears with the Alaska Social Studies Frameworks, is used extensively throughout Alaska. She has a BFA in painting, a Masters of Art Therapy, and a Masters in gifted education. Connie teaches graduate level art classes for classroom teachers, and her own artwork appears in several publications and in private collections throughout the nation.

Rona Mason is a certified dance teacher who has taught modern, jazz, folk, and creative dance for over fifteen years, a dozen years in Anchorage and village communities throughout the state. She has worked both in the private and public school sectors, introducing the Alaskan population to the magic of movement. She has been a consultant for the Anchorage School District and statewide teacher training programs, developing a creative dance training for teachers and providing extensive teacher in-services. Rona is also part of the talent bank for the Artist-in-the-Schools program and has worked with the Very Special Arts Festival. In 1990, she was one of three full-time dance specialists selected to start a K-12 district-wide dance program based on a sequential dance curriculum in the Vancouver (Washington) School District. Rona received her degree from UCLA and studied dance both on the east and west coasts of the Lower 48 as well as abroad. Since her return home to Alaska in 1992, Rona has continued to be an ambassador for creative dance education here.

Kathy Roberts was co-chair of the Alaska Arts Standards Development Committee. She is a teacher of high school and middle school choir, visual arts, and drama for Kodiak Island Borough Schools. She has eight years of experience as an elementary music teacher as well as eight years teaching high school. Her education includes a graduate fellowship in arts administration at Indiana University. Kathy has served as chair of the Alaska Alliance for Arts in Education, member of the Region VII Alliance, partner in Kennedy Center's Partners in Education Program, chair of Kodiak College Advisory Committee, and adjunct member of Kodiak Arts Council Board of Trustees.

Katherine A. Schwartz, Ph.D. is the Director of the Alaska Center for Excellence in Arts Education at Kenai Peninsula College and has twenty years of experience in education in Alaska. Her education includes a BS, MS, and Ph.D. in art education. She is a consultant for the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, and she is an invitational presenter for many state and national conferences. Dr. Schwartz has taught art to hundreds of students in every grade level. Currently she teaches art education and Philosophy of Education for the University of Alaska. She provides staff development to improve education in the arts, and her distance courses for teachers are administered across the state. Dr. Schwartz has been recognized as the Alaska Art Educator of the Year and received awards for Excellence in Higher Education and for her outstanding contributions to the National Art Education Association. She is active in many local, state, and national education associations, and she has received several research grants for improving art education. Her research includes "Improving Visual Art Education in Alaska 1991-1996," "The Role of the Arts in General Education," and "Teaching Models for Art Education, a Case Study."

Barbara Short is a twenty-year Fairbanks resident and has taught or supervised art for over fifteen years. She has worked at all levels, K-12, and has instructed at the university level. She was co-chair of the Alaska Arts Standards Development Committee. Barbara is Art Supervisor for Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and administers the Percent for Art program there. She is currently active in many local, state, and national arts associations, including Fairbanks Arts and Culture Education, the Alaska Art Education Association, the National Art Education Association, the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, and the Alaska Alliance for Arts in Education. Barbara is the Alaska Arts Education Association's Alaska Art Educator of the Year for 1997. She holds an M.Ed. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and is presently completing her administrative endorsement. She works to support all of the arts and the value they have to students and the education system. In her spare time, Barbara makes art.

Karen Stapf-Harris has taught language arts 7-12, art K-12, and drama at Anderson School for eleven years. She was named Denali School District Teacher of the Year in 1989 and 1995, received the Alaska Art Education Association's Middle Level Art Educator of the Year Award in 1997, was selected to the 1996 Getty National Invitational Discipline-Based Arts Education Theory Development Symposium, and was one of the first National Board Certified Teachers in the nation in the area of language arts. She is the state coordinator for the National Council of Teachers of English Promising Eighth Grade Writer contest and has served as the DEA President for her district and as president of the Anderson Community Library Board. Karen was selected to the Rhode Island School of Design Honors Seminar in 1990. One of its purposes was to develop a nationwide cadre of art educators as advocates for the arts in their communities. She has served on the Alaska Arts Standards Development Committee and written Artists-in-Residence grants in Arizona and Alaska. She is a member of the Alaska Teacher Research Network, the Alaska Art Education Association, and the Alaska Council of Teacher of English, as well as their national counterparts. She is her district representative for the Alaska State Writing Consortium. Karen is especially proud of her students' accomplishments and their passion for life and learning.

Judith Entwife has been the Fine Arts Specialist at the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development for six years, following fifteen years teaching in the classroom. She holds a B.A. in English and humanities and an M.A. in curriculum and instruction. Ms. Entwife is a member of Alaska Alliance for Arts in Education (State Board of Directors), Alaska Art Education Association, Alaska Arts in Education (Grants Review Panel), Alaska Center for Excellence in Art Education (Advisory Board), Alaskans Hot for the Arts, American Alliance for Theatre and Education, National Arts Education Association, and National Council of State Arts Education Consultants (founding member). She has served on the National Arts Standards Project Review Panel, National Endowment for the Arts Advisory Panel, and National Assessment of Educational Project Review Panel. In the last two years, she has convened the Alaska Arts Standards Development Committee, the Alaska Arts Framework Development Committee, and the Alaska Arts Teacher Preparation and Certification Committee. Her community arts activities have included the Alaska Children's Theatre (staff), Alaska State Museum (docent), Alaska State Writing Consortium (State Board of Directors), Bellingham Academy of Performing Arts (staff), Friends of Chuckanut (director), Friends of Fairhaven, Juneau Douglas Little Theatre (board member), and Juneau Lyric Opera. She is a regular presenter/contributor to national and state education conferences and newsletters. Her arts awards include a Commendation for Outstanding Contribution to the Enrichment of the Artistic Life of the City, listing in Who's Who in Education, and the 1997 Alaska and National Education Associations' Supervision and Administration Art Education of the Year.

Marsha Partlow has been the Alaska Framework Development Project Assistant since May, 1995. She has a BA in art from Asbury College , an MA in the Administration of Adult and Community Education from Alaska Pacific University, and a Child Development Associate through the University of Alaska Juneau. She has administered the Art in the Capitol student gallery and the Commissioner's Student Art Gallery at the Department of Education & Early Development. Marsha has worked at the Alaska State Museum and is an avid supporter of the performing arts in Juneau. Through Head Start, she generated enthusiasm for the arts by enhancing the story box, scarf dances, puppetry; by teaching how to prepare aesthetically pleasing environments; and by presenting arts and crafts workshops for parents and staff.