The following is a text of a letter sent to the school community from our PTO President, Jen Perry. Please review the letter and take action to ensure that our students receive fair and equitable arts and music education… 

Fillmore Arts Update

I’ve received many questions about the status of the Fillmore Arts Center. For those new to Stoddert, the Fillmore Arts Center provides Stoddert students with dance, digital arts, theater/drama, music and visual arts, once a week. The Fillmore Arts Center is housed on the 3^rd Floor of Hardy MS. I wanted to give you all of the latest information and provide ways that you can help advocate for arts in our school.

Current Changes to Fillmore

Beginning on October 1^st, DCPS changed transportation to and from Fillmore. Last year bussing was provided by a private company through a rather exorbitant contract. To cut costs, DCPS started using Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) busses.

This change has had real impacts on our children and teachers. The OSSE busses provided are not full-length school busses and so teachers often have to break up their classes to ride in more than one bus. We are working with OSSE and Fillmore to make sure that our children are safely chaperoned on the busses and are sitting within the safety recommendations of the bus capacity. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Principal, Don Bryant at donald.bryant@dc.gov

The change in bussing has also resulted in a shortened day for our afternoon Fillmore classes. Because the OSSE busses already have end-of-the-day transportation commitments, our afternoon Fillmore kids have to leave Fillmore 30 minutes earlier than before. Therefore, our kids are getting 30 minutes less of Fillmore each week.

The Future of Fillmore

DCPS would like to end the Fillmore Arts Center for SY 2017-2018. The rhetoric around this issue can be rather heated; however know that we are working closely with the PTO/PTA Presidents from the Fillmore Schools and with Friends of Fillmore (FoF, Fillmore’s PTO Organization) on navigating the different channels to try and find a way to come up with a solution that satisfies all parties involved.

This will not happen overnight and there is no assurance that we will continue to have the Fillmore Arts Center in its current format. As such, the PTO/PTA Presidents of the Fillmore schools have recognized that we each need to have a 2-pronged approach:

• Continue to Advocate to Save Fillmore
  • Raise awareness within the community about the space issues that we face at Stoddert and the other Fillmore schools which make it difficult for us to provide arts within our schools. The Fillmore schools are a few of the only schools in DC that do not have dedicated art or music space. Recently, WUSA9 did a story on Fillmore. Watch it here. Our DC Board of Education Ward 3 representative, Ruth Wattenberg, recently wrote an article in her newsletter about Fillmore. Read it here.
  • Circulate and sign the FoF change.org petition that will allow Fillmore School parents and friends to share their concerns and express their support for Fillmore. If you have not signed the petition, I urge you to do so. You can sign it right here.
  • Meet with DC elected officials and their advisors to discuss options that would allow Fillmore to continue serving our schools’ arts needs. PTO/PTA Presidents from Stoddert, Key and Ross met with Mary Cheh’s office on October 14th to gain insight on the best way to advocate for Fillmore. On November 1^st, Mayor Bowser is coming to the Glover Park Citizen’s Association (GPCA) Meeting.
• Start Planning for “In-house” Arts Programs
  • Fill out the DCPS Fillmore Transition survey this week providing them with input on our ideas for arts education within our school.
    Link to survey in English: click here
    Link to survey in Spanish: click here
    As you can see in the survey, it is very clear that DCPS’s current position is to close Fillmore. Use the survey’s open comments field to let DCPS know about your concerns for an in-house arts program.
  • Meet with DCPS leadership in each school’s Local School Advisory Team (LSAT) to understand what DCPS’s plans are for arts within the schools and what resources will be available to us. Heather Holaday, DCPS Deputy Chief, Arts, Global Education, Health, Physical Education will be meeting with our LSAT on November 9^th.
  • Meet with our own LSAT team to set budget priorities for both scenarios (with and without Fillmore) at our school. Our LSAT held its first meeting this evening and appointed Stoddert parent, Melissa Loughlin as its chair. LSAT meetings are not open meetings, but you can let LSAT members know what you’d like to see. Click here to learn who serves on our LSAT.

I will continue to share updates on Fillmore, as I know that having good quality arts education for our kids is something we all feel passionately about. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have or to discuss the issue further. Feel free to shoot me an email or catch up with me during drop-off or pick-up. You can also bring your questions to our November 3rd General PTO Meeting. Hope to see you there!

Best,
Jen Perry
Stoddert PTO President
president@stoddert.org