2023-556-E-Arts Commission-Estes Hills PTA-2023-24 Arts Grants

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Organization Description Founded in 1958, Estes Hills Elementary School is one of the oldest schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district. Estes Hills is a neighborhood school in the truest sense, as many students from the surrounding homes walk or bike to school every day. In the current academic year (2022-23), Estes Hills Elementary serves 353 children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The school has 20 traditional classrooms (including one pre-K) plus one behavior support class, and offers programs in Exceptional Education, Gifted Education, Head Start preschool, and English as a Second Language. Our student body is evenly divided along gender lines (50% Male / 50% Female) and has a diverse racial composition: W hite (54%), Black (15%), Hispanic (11%), Asian (8%), and Multi-racial (12%). Estes Hills has 21 traditional classroom teachers; 100% are fully licensed. W e have a diverse staff which is 68% W hite, 24% Black, 5% Hispanic, 1% Asian, and 1% Pacific Islander; in terms of gender, the staff is 65% Female and 35% Male. Our school offers art and music instruction in accordance with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for elementary school students, with a full-time professional in each “specials” discipline: Art, Music, French, and Physical Education (which incorporates dance). These teachers supplement classroom time with extracurricular events, including in 2022-23: participating in the district-wide Visions Art Show; a “Specials Showcase” night featuring activities for families in art, music, French, and physical education; a school-wide “music composer of the month” program; a French café and poetry declamation; and a 4th grade field trip to the NC Symphony Orchestra in Raleigh. W e continue to ramp up extracurricular events post-COVID. The arts are alive and well at Estes Hills, but these efforts largely depend on parent donations and volunteer hours, in the absence of funding. The mission of the Estes Hills PTA is to serve the whole community of the school - the students, teachers, staff and families - by providing necessary resources to support the highest quality educational environment possible. The PTA is comprised of parent volunteers (Executive Board is 83% Female / 17% Male; 100% W hite) and seeks to promote the cultural arts in education by bringing in professional artists to perform at our school. These performances both educate and inspire the students to undertake their own artistic pursuits. Has your organization undergone any Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training? If so, please explain. If not, please explain any barriers that have prevented you from receiving this training. W e are continuing a diversity initiative for our PTA during the next academic year, with the goal of diversifying our membership and board and creating more equitable PTA programs. This coming year, we will work with the NCPTA to identify an online training for members that can be offered on a voluntary basis, and/or mandatory for the PTA executive board and committee leads. This past year we created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee and worked with the school administration to define its purpose. W e are now combining efforts of the newly formed DEI committee with our teacher-led Equity Committee. W e are also in the process of working with the school social worker to support the formation of affinity groups among families in our community. DocuSign Envelope ID: 0C261A48-D79C-4528-A50D-5F8F988DC33B