Arts Education in Orlando

Orlando Family Stage (OFS) is a proud partner with Orange County Schools (OCPS)! One of those incredible partnerships is with the OCPS Visual and Performing Arts Department! Stacie Perez, Director of Arts-Based Learning for OFS, sat down with Chris Cause, Program Specialist for Theatre and Dance Teacher in Orange County Public Schools, to talk about Arts Education and how his work supports arts learning across a wide variety of students and teachers.

Stacie: Chris, can you share with us a little bit about your role in OCPS? 

Chris: My role as program specialist is to support all of our different theater and dance teachers throughout the entire district. Our curriculum based instruction goes along with all of our state standards, so we’re talking about, in the classroom, six periods. Sometimes it’s three, sometimes it’s even one, where we’ll have about 68 different theater teachers that are in a full-time or part-time role, and 35 dance teachers across the district. We’re the 8th largest school district in the country, so we are very, very lucky to be able to have so many different arts opportunities across the board. 

Stacie: Can you share with us a little bit about your background in the arts?

Chris: Certainly. My undergraduate degree is in performing arts or in theater in fine arts. I was a performer for 25- 30 years, whether it was on stage, or on screen. I was a host. I’ve worked at various theme parks on both coasts. And I was also a sportscaster for a little while, so I’ve had great luck in being able to perform in a lot of different ways. I was able to take a lot of that kind of experience and move that into the classroom. My parents were both teachers, so it took me a little while to get into the family business, but I did! So I was a teacher for a little while teaching both social studies and then theater for middle school here in OCPS. And then after I got my master’s degree, I transitioned into this role and I’m thrilled to be able to support as many teachers as I can.

Stacie: Can you share what some of the greatest strengths are in the theater and dance programs at OCPS? 

Chris: It’s so important to provide a well-rounded education. That’s really what arts in the classrooms can really bring. It talks about critical thinking. It enhances self-esteem. We get students who wouldn’t ever think that they could get on stage, and before you know it, they’re singing, they’re dancing, they’re performing in thespian festivals, and it’s so important to be able to provide those opportunities for students to be able to perform and find their place in the school. Not to mention, studies will show that it improves SAT scores anywhere from 35 to 65 points when you participate in arts programs in schools. So I can give it to you on a couple of different levels, including data. 

Stacie: I was actually going to ask that question. What are some of those long-term benefits from having really strong arts programs in schools? And you said SAT scores. I mean, it really helps in so many different areas. 

Chris: It really does. We see students, I mean, I had one student who when it came time to perform, he froze and we had an assignment. It was like, “no”, just unfortunately had a really rough time confronting that. And then once I got into this role, I actually saw him in a high school production and he was working backstage! He had this love for theater, but then had finally found his place and it almost brought me to tears. Just the idea that this student had been able to really find his place by having different opportunities available to him.

Stacie: Can you describe how Orlando family stage and OCPS partner to bring arts education professional development to our teachers? 

Chris: Oh, it’s one of the favorite parts of my job. Being able to work with Stacie, Jenn, and everybody here at Orlando Family Stage, and really bringing opportunities to all of OCPS teachers, not just our theater and dance teachers. We’ve got just a fantastic arts integration program where we’re really bringing ideas and specialists and professionals from around the country that can come in here and be able to show teachers maybe a different way to present material where you’re really integrating a lot more of the arts, but it’s not one at the expense of the other. It’s much more about putting the two of them together. So last year we had that outstanding life cycle of water where we integrated dance and movement into a sixth grade Earth Science kind of lesson and bringing that together. And now we’re working on one about writing and rhyming and being able to bring that to an elementary school level. I can’t tell you how important that partnership is to us in the VPA department at OCPS and providing these opportunities across the district. 

Stacie: And we offer these programs to a variety of grades and age groups. So it’s really K through 12. It’s a really great program that benefits our teachers, so that’s awesome. 

Chris: Oh, we’re thrilled to be a part of it.

Stacie: So we talked a lot about the benefits of arts integration and incorporating the arts into curriculum. So can you share with us some of the challenges that teachers have when they’re trying to incorporate the arts into their curriculum? 

Chris: I think in a lot of ways it’s what we experience when students are a little apprehensive about getting out of their comfort zone. It’s really kind of committing to the idea of using this as a tool and then hyping up both the arts aspect as well as the curriculum or the standard that they’re looking to address. If they kind of stay withdrawn and not full out, then the students aren’t going to have that same kind of experience. So I think it’s just a comfortability, which is why being able to put together the model that we have, where students are able to watch a show, then watch the facilitator with the class and have the teachers watch that so they see how it can go with that same kind of energy, with that same kind of enthusiasm and get an idea of, within guardrails, about how the entire lesson should go. And then have a lot more confidence to go along with that when they’re able to present with confidence in the same way that we would tell our students, just go out there. If you sing the wrong note, you do it confidently. Nobody’s going to care. That’s the important thing, is to be able to come out there and really commit to it. And I think the more opportunities that teachers will trust themselves in trying this new kind of method, the better off they’ll be.

Stacie: Can you share with us your vision for arts education at OCPS? 

Chris: Well, we’re so proud in Orange County Public Schools to be able to provide an arts option at every single one of our 213 schools. That’s already something that we’re incredibly proud to provide. As far as kind of expanding that, we currently provide some kind of arts performance for second grade all the way through sixth grade, where it’s second graders will come and see The Nutcracker. Whether our Young People’s concert series is happening right now, where they’re able to watch different, an orchestra perform and see and experience different things from a performance standpoint. Opera, and an orchestra, live in front of them. In addition to also seeing a jazz concert in sixth grade. We provide that as well to really try and bring all of these students in as far as expanding that we want to be able to get back to doing a theater option. We used to have that. Unfortunately, it is one of the casualties of Covid, but I’m very confident that we’re going to be able to bring that back and continue to provide all of these different arts options for students as they grow and learn and get that kind of exposure. And once they see all these different arts options, they can say, “oh, I want to be a part of that.” They’ll find themselves drawn to those different things over the course of the rest of their career. 

Stacie: One more question. How can the community support arts education in their neighborhood schools? 

Chris: You can ask your principal. If your school doesn’t have necessarily an arts program that you would like, you can recommend that. You could volunteer to support. You can help watch during a rehearsal. You can help build a set for your child’s production that might be going on at their school. You can just take your kids. You can take your kids to a show at any of the different great arts opportunities that we have in Orlando. People kind of get a certain idea about what Orlando is, but we have a vibrant arts community here in so many different directions, and there has to be something that you can bring your students to that will bring them in, and then they’ll probably tell you whether or not they want to be involved in something else like that. You can write your legislator and say, we need more funding for arts programming. And of course you can donate and really just come and see a show at any of your community partners. They would really appreciate it, as well as help keep more and more arts productions going on here in Orlando.

Stacie: Well, thank you so much, Chris, for your time and for being here and for celebrating Arts and Education Week with us. 

Chris: It is my pleasure. Thank you.

Want to bring Orlando Family Stage’s Arts-Based Learning programs to your school? Contact sperez@orlandofamilystage.com