How to Gain Administrative Supprt for your Fine Arts Program

Fine Arts Teachers are in a precarious position.  Every year as contracts come out, FA teachers worry about if their contract will be renewed. It is a sad state of affairs when budget cuts at the school often mean cutting the Fine Arts Department. Sometimes these cuts come in form of a non-renewal but more often these cuts come from the FA budget being decimated. As a Fine Arts teacher, you must advocate for your program and ensure that your students have the program and supplies they need to succeed. This is often a difficult task. To help make this task easier you must gain the support of your administration. A supportive administration will do wonders to help your children succeed. I have a wonderful working relationship with my administrators that I have worked very hard to create. Now this doesn't mean that we always agree or that I get an unlimited budget (oh man do I not get an unlimited budget) but it does mean that I have a working dialog with my administrators that helps make my job easier. Read on to see what I did to gain support.

Fundraising

It is the sad truth that money makes the world go round. Schools that are strapped for cash will often cut the fine arts programs first. This is especially true if your program is constantly needing money and never contributing to the general fund. Your department needs to become financially independent. If you are constantly going to your administration for money they are going to start thinking that you aren't adding value to the school. Your first goal is to simply raise enough money to run your own program. You should be able to cover your supplies, travel expenses and rights to performances. Check out my five creative fundraiser ideas if you need ideas on raising money. After you are able to raise enough money to maintain your own expenses you then need to start making a. "Profit" for the school. We contribute to our school through out major musical. This year we produced Aladdin jr. We made several thousand dollars for the school! If you are making money for the school, the principal will not want to cut your program!

Community performance

With the new leadership evaluation system that most principals are on, community outreach plays a large in the principals overall score. Going and doing community outreach is great for you and your principals' evaluation scores but it is also great for the students. Kids learn so much when they go and perform in their community. They learn how to adjust to different performance venues. They learn the importance of preparation and also being able to adjust on the fly. Most importantly, student learn about giving back to the community. I will never forget when out students went and sang for a nursing home. They came back talking about how happy the people were that we came and visited. They wanted to go back and see them again!

Be flexible but firm

As we all know in schools, things happen. You can't always avoid the last minute things that pop up throughout the school year. Being flexible with your administration can come in very handy. Principal asks you to put together a performance for a principals meeting "sure I would love to" is a great response. I once knew a theatre teacher who refused to be flexible ever. Her administration had accidentally scheduled the Winter Showcase over one of her early blocking rehearsals (meaning she had several months to make this rehearsal up). She refused to cancel/reschedule her rehearsal and threatened to not excuse students who wanted to perform in the showcase. This caused a lot of animosity between her and administration. Administration still made her cancel her rehearsal and both her and the principal were upset over the exchange. All of this could have been avoided with a little flexibility. If it all possible be flexible when your principal asks for something. If it is reasonable and you can reasonably accommodate them, always say yes.

Not only will flexibility help you create good will with your administration, it will also help you have good standing with your Principal when you need to say NO. My principal and I have a very good working relationship and she trusts me. She knows I will not say No to her unless I have a very good reason. Once we had a disagreement about how many students to put in a dance class. She wanted to let every student who had a desire to take dance on a grade level, take dance. I disagreed. I wanted to cap the class so that the teacher would not be overwhelmed (45 first graders in one classroom is just too many). She and I had a discussion, but I was firm. She could not put that many students in the class. It would hurt the program and that teacher's performances. She finally agreed and we were able to move on. I firmly believe that you need to be firm in your beliefs on what is best for the children. Say yes when you can, but when you feel like you must say no, do so firmly and have very good reasons ("I don't want to" is often not a great reason).

Get parent support

Parents can be your most valuable asset when it comes to gaining support from your administration. Keep your parents happy, and you will keep your administration happy.  Parents love to see their students perform and succeed. They love the opportunities you provide their child. Lets be honest, very core teachers have students performing and competing as much as Fine Arts Teachers do. Use this to your advantage. Give students the opportunity to perform. It always amazes me that no matter how many performance opportunities we give our students to perform (4+ a year), parents still want more. Parents will love you and it will create good good will with your administration.

Parents can also be your biggest support if your position is ever cut. I know of so many stories of Fine Arts teachers being re-instated at schools because parents went to the school board and complained. Parents hate it when the Arts get cut from a school. They really hate it when a fabulous arts teacher gets cut from a school. Sometimes going to the school board often enough will actually help save your job. Keeping parents happy is well worth the effort.

Put on awesome performances

The most important way to gain support is to put on quality performances. Do not throw a performance together at the last minute. Do not put on a performance that you are not proud of. Yes there is always more you can do to  improve your shows, but you need to first put in the effort. Choose quality material that is appropriately challenging. Encourage the students to go beyond their limits and then throw in a small amount of flash. Students love to perform. This is why you became a Fine Arts teacher in the first place. To teach students to love the arts and performance. Enjoy the process and do what you do best. For more tips on how to direct an awesome performance visit my Director's Corner. 

How do you gain support for your administration? Did I leave off any ideas? Do you think it is important to have support of your administration? What do you do if you don't have the support you need? 

Five fantastic fundraising ideas

Everyone has to do it. No one particularly likes to do it, but everyone has to do it... FUNDRAISING. Fundraising can be one of the hardest parts of any school job, especially a theatre teacher who is needing money to fund the next school production or competition. As a theatre teacher, my biggest fundraiser each year is my Musical Production.

This year I set a new high by raising $10,000 with my production! Say what!

If you read my posts on Thursday you know I am doing a weekly step by step guide to how to put on a productions. Productions are not easy and they require a ton of prep-work and expense. So while I love using a production as a fundraiser, it is often good to have a few easy fundraisers as well. These are also great because they work well for the entire school or a club (we have actually used these to help raise money for Relay for Life and other charities as well). These  fundraisers also take very little prep time and expense.

Penny wars

This is one of my favorite fundraisers. All you need are some teams and a big jar per team. In school, teams are easy. You can either have grade levels compete against each other, boys vs. girls or club vs. club.  What ever works. You then need to have large jars somewhere. (We were a little worried about the jars running off so we drilled milk-jugs to a large wooden plank and placed the plan in the library_ much harder to run off with a huge plank).  The rules are simple.  For every penny that is put in your team jar, your team gets a point. For every denomination that is not a penny, your team looses that many points. The team with the most points wins!

For example if we are having a boys vs girls penny war. One girl  puts 50 pennies in the girl jar. The girls now have 50 points! Then a boy comes and trows a quarter in the girl jar. The girls now loose 25 points (quarter= 25 pennies). The girls now only have 25 points!

This is a great game because kids get the change to sabotage the other teams. It also is great because it helps reinforce money concepts which our students struggle with. This game can be played for any amount of time you want. I once knew a school that played all year, but declared a winner each month! For the winning team you can choose any number of prizes: Free dance party during specials, pride, a sign over their hallway declaring them the winners. Try to think of something cheep but fun that the kids would love.

Flock of flamingos

 Flock of flamingos is a great fundraiser but you must have a very awesome staff and administration to pull it off. The whole concept is that students can pay money to send a flock of flamingos to different teacher's rooms. This fundraiser is hilarious but if your staff is not amused with the flock it wont work. To prepare for this fundraiser all you need to do is cut out a ton of flamingos from pink paper.  Or if you staff is really awesome_ go buy a few plastic flamingos at the dollar store/ goodwill. I would pick one week that was "Flamingo Week" during this week students can pay (see suggested prices below) to flamingo someone's classroom/class door. Teachers then either have to live with the flamingos all week or can get flamingo insurance to have the flamingos removed from their door at the end of each day.  Once the week is over, all the flamingos fly on and life returns to normal.

Suggested pricing:
1 flamingo is $1.00
1/2 flock (6 flamingos) is $5.00
Full Flock (12 flamingos) is $10.00
Flamingo insurance is $10.00

If you are using the plastic flamingos you might want to change the number of flamingos in a flock. If you are using paper you could increase the flock size. Also remember that if you want, more than one flock can go to a teacher's door (and even if they buy the insurance, the flock will still land for one day).

Jar of shame

You also need an awesome staff to pull off this fundraiser. Find a few awesome teachers who don't mind embarrassing themselves for a great cause. Have them each declare one embarrassing thing they will do if they win (or loose depending on how you look at it). Use the same jars as from the penny wars. Take pictures of each teacher are put a picture and their embarrassing stunt of the jar. The teacher who has raised the most money by the end of the week, must perform the embarrassing task. Everyone loves this fundraiser, it is fun and the kids get a kick out of watching teachers humiliate themselves. The only warning I would give is make sure the teachers are comfortable performing their tasks. You don't want someone to pack out at the last minuet.

Shameful ideas :)
dye you hair a funny color for the day
shave your head
eat a bug/worm
kiss a pig
get duck-taped to a wall
dress like a _______(something silly)____ all day
eat some weird food
do a crazy dance

Pay to wear

If your school has a strict uniform this is always a great option. On special days, allow students to pay money to break uniform. This fundraiser is great because it takes no effort on your part and you make some super easy money. We have had hat day, pajama day, sports day, silly day, book character day.  Any type of day you can think of is a great theme for this type of fundraiser. Make sure you get permission from your administration before hosting this event (some school systems wont let you pay to wear). Also make sure you have a plan for those kids who wear but do not pay. Do they have to call home and get a change of clothes or are you just going to ignore it. This fundraiser is no prep and no cost so if you are allowed you should definitely add it in to your rotation.

Face painting/ temporary tattoos

This fundraiser costs a little more on the front end, but all the kids love it. First invest in some face paints or temporary tattoos that you can sell.  Then on any day you get approval, sell face paint and temporary tattoos. You can make a ton of profit from this type of fundraiser. There 144 tattoos in a pack @ $5.00 a pack. If you sell the pack for even $0.25 each you will make $31.00 a pack (you can make $62 if you sell at $0.50 a tattoo). This is a great easy fundraiser for a club. You really need several people helping you sell/paint faces. If you have a ton of talented kids in your group let them paint faces one day. It is amazing how much money you can make for such a simply process.



Well these are just a few of my ideas on how to help raise money for your school, club, or class. Did any of these ideas work for you? Were you able to make any money off of them? Also what other fundraisers have you tried that have been very successful? Leave me a message I would love to hear from you!

Arts Integration- Students as Producers

One area I personally struggle with is how to integrate math into the theatre curriculum. At our school it is expected that we integrate the core subjects into our classes and that the core classes integrate fine arts into their class. English and Social Studies are natural fits for Theatre. Both subjects have strong writing standards and history standards. It is easy to integrate them. Math not so much.

I have found one math lesson that works very well: Budgeting! This lesson is also great because it opens students eyes about the real cost of a play. It helps them see why we charge for tickets or why we can't afford to fly people like Peter Pan. Several of my students are under this crazy impression that we just get things for free. They say their parents complain that they have to pay to see the show. This lesson gives the students the information they need to talk with their parents about why we charge for the play.

Side note: I always give rounded fake numbers when talking with students about money. If they know too much about your actual budget, they start to make suggestions on how you should spend it (can you pay for all of us to go see that new movie? You should buy all of us food for each performance!) Feel free to check out the worksheets I made to accompany this lesson. They really help organize the students thinking. 

Check out my teacherspayteachers page to purchase these pages for only $1.00

Step one: easy budget. In the first step you want to model how a theatre budget works. If you have recently put on a play use it for a close example. This is also a great time to talk about Royalties. Many students and parents don't realize that we have to pay for the rights to put on the play. Give the students a few examples of how the budget works.

Example one cost

Royalties - $1050

Set - $200

Costumes - $400

Props - $150

Total expenses- $1800!

Step two: ticket pricing. Now talk about how ticket pricing is our way of making back the money we spent. If we price the tickets too low we don't make any money, if we price too high, no one will come. For the first examples I like to give an easy projected audience size (500).  Then the equation (ticket price) X (audience size) = gains. Gains- expenses =profit.

Example one price

Tickets - $0

0*500=0

0-1800=-1800

We loose almost $2000 if we don't charge anything.

Example two price

Tickets -$5.00

5*500=2500

2500-1800=700

We make $700!

Example three prices

Tickets- $20.00

20*500= 10,000

10000-1800=8200

We can make $8,200! 

Make sure you remind students though that their audience number will go down as the ticket price goes up. Have them work out their own ticket problems and come up with a suggested. Price for the show. 

Step three: budget analysis. Teach the students how to use and read a spread sheet. There is a great interactive example on this website Kidswork TV Director (This whole website is a wonderful theatre education/technology integration site-use the tv studio and theatre for more resources).

Step four: budget creation. Create a fake cost analysis sheet for a play. In groups or on their own, have the students create a projected budget for a play they would like to produce. You should have some areas that are mandatory (Royalities, costumes, lights, etc) and some that are optional (lunch for cast, flying system, etc). Give the students a projected audience size and let them create the budget and ticket price. For an added bonus have them write a justification for why they choose the things they did. You are welcome to use my worksheets for this project. You can get them for a dollar at teacherspayteachers Students as Producers worksheets

I hope this lesson helps you integrate math into your theatre class more! I also hopes it helps teach your students an important lesson about production cost. Did this lesson work for you? What other math lessons do you use in your class?