A Study of Artists at DeWitt

In 2019, the Santa Cruz COE received a Student Support and Enrichment Grant from the California Department of Education to support the academic, social, emotional, and artistic development of our students in our alternative education programs.

painting of yellow and red flowerTeachers in these programs were able to participate in the Artist Teacher Partnership program. In collaboration with the Arts Council Santa Cruz, we matched a classroom teacher with a teaching artist. The photos in the slideshow illustrate the Artist Teacher Partnership between DeWitt Anderson teacher Becca Bing and teaching artist Nessa Ledesma. Ms. Bing designed and created a curriculum that supports her students in learning about the history of different artists and their art forms. Then the students engage in practicing the art form. Here is a description of their study of the Suffragette Movement.

The DeWitt Anderson Study on the Suffragette Movement

We chose to study a historic, courageous, American woman who fought for equal rights in the late 1800s-early 1900s. Simultaneously, we studied Frida Kahlo as an artist. We used her concept of portraits with symbolic backgrounds to draw and paint the courageous women with symbols of what they experienced and fought for during their lifetimes.

2020 marks the centennial year of the passage of the 19th amendment, and we at the DeWitt Anderson Community School are commemorating the brave spirits of those who worked tirelessly for women’s rights.

Please stop by the Santa Cruz COE to see the students studies of Georgia O’Keeffe and Jackson Pollock.