Six Madison-Plains High School students will advocate for the arts before Ohio legislators on May 18: (from left) Faith Rife, Drew Sines, Lily Virjee, Aubrey Lilly, Regan Rubel and Skylar Stewart.
(Posted Feb. 15, 2016)
By Kristy Zurbrick, Madison Editor
Madison-Plains High School students will draw on their love of art to tell Ohio legislators why the arts are integral to a well-rounded education.
Madison-Plains is one of eight schools chosen to send representatives to Arts Day 2016, organized by the Ohio Citizens for the Arts Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council. The other participating schools are in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Gahanna, Lexington, Pemberville, Smithville and Wilmington.
On May 18, six students from each school will travel to the state capitol in Columbus. In the morning, they will talk to legislators about how the arts have impacted their lives. In the afternoon, they will attend the Arts Day Luncheon and Governor’s Awards for the Arts.
“We were surprised to be chosen,” said Madison-Plains art teacher Tracy Johnson about the competitive application process. “They had a huge response. It’s great to be selected from out of the entire state.”
Johnson picked freshman Faith Rife, sophomores Aubrey Lilly, Regan Rubel, Skylar Stewart and Lily Virjee, and junior Drew Sines to represent Madison-Plains.
Prior to May 18, a state legislator will visit the school to provide the students with tips on how to advocate for their cause on the House floor. They also will receive help from a speech/theater coach.
Virjee already knows what part of her personal message will be. When asked why art is important, she said, “It provides people with a way of expressing themselves when normally they may not have a way of doing that.”
Referring to art as a potential career, Sines commented, “Some people see their future in it.”
All six of Madison-Plains’ art advocates are members of the Art Club and enrolled in art classes.
“All of them, in their own way, advocate for art on a daily basis,” Johnson said.
Lilly, Art Club president, wore a turkey hat one day near Thanksgiving as a way to promote her fellow art students’ turkey-themed projects.
“She constantly steps out of her comfort zone to draw attention to the art room,” Johnson said.
Lilly is the youngest person to receive the Ohio Arts Education Association’s non-educational arts advocate award. The awards ceremony is slated for this summer.
Other ways the six students advocate for art include making slides to promote art class projects on the television screen in the school commons, creating items for the Madison-Plains Scholastic Boosters auction, and entering artwork in the annual Governor’s Art Show. Sines is creating posters that feature students’ most common answers to what it means to be “MP Strong.” Several advocates helped with a community art project that took place last week. They drew outlines of animals on tiles for visitors at parent-teacher conferences to color in using glaze. Participants are invited to return to the school to pick up the finished, fired products.
Johnson said the chance for students to advocate on behalf of art instruction fits with the new “whole child” approach to education.
“The ‘whole child’ approach includes the need to hit the aesthetic side of learning,” she said. “Arts programs are always the first areas cut (when financial problems arise). Arts Day 2016 gives students an opportunity to fight for arts programs.”
