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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Carpenter Receives the DTE School of the Year at the UMS Ford Gala


Photo: At the 2013 award ceremony.
This season, UMS asked the southeastern Michigan community to help us choose the 2012-2013 UMS DTE Energy Foundation Educator and School of the Year. UMS wanted to recognize educators and learning communities doing great work integrating the arts throughout the K-12 curriculum.
2013 School of the Year:
Carpenter Elementary School, Ann Arbor for its dedication and commitment to arts education. Carpenter has become a model among its peers in the integration of arts into the curriculum, in large part because of the efforts of two teachers, Laura Machida (music) and Meredith Giltner (art), who work tirelessly to create meaningful integration and enhanced learning through the arts. They have solicited grants and parent donations to ensure that Carpenter students experience the performing arts through attendance at performances and in-school artist interactions. Additionally, they participate in UMS Teacher Workshops and integrate the arts into the curriculum at Carpenter, a Title 1 school, in ways that touch both classroom and community, from an after-school gardening program to a student art sale to benefit a family in the school community.


2013 Educator of the Year:
Matt Kazmierski, Ypsilanti Public Schools, honoring his passionate commitment to and advancement of arts education. When the Ypsilanti Public Schools moved sixth grade from middle school to elementary school, the sixth grade band program was in jeopardy. Mr. Kazmierski’s insistence on making sixth-grade band a contributing part of the YPS school-day band program increased access and visibility of the arts to more than 1,000 students, with sixth-grade band participation rising by more than 50%. Creative models of arts access like the one Mr. Kazmierski implemented in YPS will be critical to sustaining access to quality arts education in public schools.
You can view the video at http://ums.org/learn/educator-experiences#dte-school-educator-of-the-year.