Kyrene Middle School Granted New Hands-On Classroom Opportunities

Reporter: Alana Lynch

TEMPE—Several art teachers at Kyrene Middle School received grants from the City of Tempe to provide hands-on experience in their classrooms for their students on October 9th.

The City of Tempe awards grants of up to $750  each year for supplies and resources for the arts, music, or drama productions. Additional grants of $2,000 are awarded to teachers who hire a clinician to teach the students skills in the related area and hands-on experiences. The grants, totaling over $15,000, will fund projects and clinician visits at six Kyrene schools for the 2024-25 school year. The grants are a great opportunity to provide the resources needed in the classroom instead of having the teachers provide those resources out of their pockets.

Selena Ryan, a band teacher at Kyrene Middle School and a third year recipient of the Tempe Arts Grant shared that one of the challenging factors  of applying for the grant is ensuring that the language in the application is correct to ensure that  the request of accommodation is taken seriously by the donors.

Ryan mentioned that there is a great deal of support and coordinators that ensure that the application is done well to secure those funds. She explained that throughout the process she has received various feedback by the District Finance Team at the school to change or add certain aspects to the application to ensure that she had the right information or  “buzzwords”  in the application.

Lisa Sellers, a music teacher at Kyrene Middle School,  who has been an educator for 30 years shares what happens when a school does not have enough funding or resources for the school year. 

“I have had years when people have been laid off and I have had years where there was such a big budget crunch that my principal called the entire faculty to a meeting where we had to cut $100,000,” Sellers said.

She explained that in those scenarios, those budget cuts usually come out of the specialty budget which includes the art, music, and physical education department. In these situations, Sellers had to learn how to “do without,” which means that the funding comes out of her own pockets. 

Sellers mentioned that there are many cases where she had to replace things such as rhythm sticks or mallets for her students due to the lack of funding and resources available to her. She also stated that sometimes teachers cannot always take this alternative because they may have other responsibilities at home that can make it challenging to put that same money into the classrooms. 

Fortunately, due to the grant Sellers is able to provide her students with various instruments from ukuleles to music books to ensure that her students have a fulfilling school year with hands-on-learning. 

Rachel Self, a theater teacher at Kyrene Middle School who is using the grant money on production discusses the importance of hands-on-learning for students.

“It gives them a more professional experience and it gives them more of a well-rounded experience because we can give them instructions all day and say this is how it’s done on Broadway or this is the standard but without the hands-on-experience , it's just a concept,” Self said.

Self explains that there is a real difference between being told how to do something rather than doing it, especially with something as hands-on as production in theater.

Receiving these grants and funding determines the type of environment and experiences received from the students in the classroom. For some students, these art classes are the reason why they come to school and are seen as a motivator to do well in their other classes.

“I have some students who are not necessarily interested in classes like math but they know that if they go to math class and do well then they are able to come to band after, and it serves as a type of motivation for them,” Ryan said.