On Friday December 16, 2016 Phoenix Military Academy High School was selected to receive the Arts Essentials funds in the amount of $1,000 for the purchase of equipment, materials, and supplies for visual and performing arts instruction. The Art department plans to put the money into good use.

Several years ago Mayor Emanuel made “additional funds” available to CPS schools for the arts. This funding was supposed to go to staffing schools (especially elementary schools) without art or music teachers as well as for additional supplies and professional development. In order to promote and oversee this infusion of cash the city also restructured and beefed up the department of Arts Education Administration.

In order to receive this grant a liaison has to do reports. At Phoenix, the  liaison is Mr. McElgunn, who is the art teacher.
“ Part of my role as Arts Liaison is to fill out a survey about the status of our arts programming from year to year. The results of this survey apply to the annual ‘school report card’ that is created to assess and develop a ranking system for schools in CPS, ” said Mr. McElgunn.

McElgunn has been working  to help students so they can become better artists, especially his students in his  advanced placement courses.  Having this extra money to buy materials and tools will help students with their artwork.

“We are going to buy some Wacom computer tablets. Basically these are devices that plug into a computer and can be used to draw with a pen in a variety of computer programs,” said Mr. McElgunn.

These tablets are a standard tool for almost  every art professional. In the long run, it’s going to help students get experience so they won’t have trouble when working with these tools in the future.