TUSD Arts Program Wins Governor’s Award

By KATHLEEN ALLEN

Tucson’s Opening Minds Through the Arts has boasting rights these days:

Last week, the Tucson Unified School District program, which uses the arts to teach math and science and critical thinking to students, won the Governor’s Arts Award for Arts in Education.

That’s hot stuff, with such heady competition as Childsplay, Tucson High Magnet School theater teacher Art Almquist, and the head of the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Albert D. Tucci.

The Opening the Minds Through the Arts program won for its “outstanding contribution to arts in education,” according to the Arizona Commission on the Arts Web site (www.azarts.gov/).

OMA isn’t just about saying the arts are good for education – it has the research to back it up. The 7-year-old program is reaching more than 17,000 students in 37 TUSD schools this year. Plans are to expand it – perhaps even beyond our state’s borders; it’s drawn interest from around the country.

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