LEAP EXAMINES LANGUAGE AND THE ARTS
The Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP) examined language and arts offerings in Loudoun County Public
Schools (LCPS) at its December 10th meeting.
LCPS Music Supervisor Michael Pierson detailed the intellectual importance of music. Music plays a role in the
development of the mind – “The Mozart Effect” – he said, citing higher SAT’s for students who participated in music.
(Overall, students who take music classes score 31 points higher in reading, 23 points higher in math and 31 points higher
in writing.) Pierson said literacy is a key component of music education (students auditioning for regional and state honors
groups must sight read music as part of their audition).
Pierson said 52,000 students are served by the LCPS music staff. After a general introduction to music in grades one
through five, Loudoun students can specialize in an area of interest in the secondary grades. There are multiple choral
groups and instrumental musical ensembles (marching band, orchestra, concert band, percussion, brass and woodwind
ensembles) in the upper grades. Pierson said one of the greatest areas of growth has been in the orchestra program.
Starting with only 22 students during the 2004-2205 school year, the orchestra program boasts 3,203 students this year.
“Ten years ago this program did not exist.”
Another bright spot in the music program is guitar, which is offered from the beginning to expert level in grades seven
through 12. Pierson noted LCPS has embraced guitar instruction where other school districts haven’t. “For some reason,
a lot of districts are afraid of guitar. They think it’s going to kill their band program.”
The success of the LCPS guitar program is evidenced by the fact that 76 percent of the Virginia Guitar Ensemble is made
up of Loudoun students.
Pierson also talked about the success Loudoun students have enjoyed beyond high school. Former LCPS students are
now attending the Julliard School of Music, the Berklee School of Music, Boston Conservatory, Shenandoah University
and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Former LCPS students have appeared in Broadway productions of “Grease,”
“Saturday Night Fever,” “Tommy,” “Avenue Q,” and “West Side Story.” Most recently, Dominion High School graduate
Ryan Sill made it to the final rounds of the NBC singing competition “The Voice.”
LCPS Art Supervisor Melissa Pagano-Kumpf said the 115 instructors in the school division’s art program offer instruction
based on what students will need in the real world. “Skills you can use in real life.”
One of those skills is critical thinking. Pagano-Kumpf said students are taught to be “visually literate”; learning to interpret
images in a way that can enhance their everyday life. In addition, local artists are brought into LCPS schools to show
students how art can evolve into a career.
Next year, LCPS will be running pilots in 3-D design. Pagano-Kumpf also reminded LEAP delegates about the popular
Summer in the Arts program. This program allows students to explore specialized areas of interest with master
instructors.
LCPS English Specialist David Arbogast detailed the school division’s drama offerings. He noted that, technically, drama
is classified as an English class. “In practice, it is one of the performing arts; not confined to a classroom or 9 to 4 or the
school day.”
The intangibles offered by the drama curriculum include building a sense of confidence and community and developing
better communication skills.
LCPS offers a four-year drama curriculum. Drama 1 and 2 includes improvisation; voice and diction; basic acting;
fundamentals of play production; basic movement; and the history of the theater. Drama 3 and 4 include subjects of more
specialized interest, including musical theater; preparing professional resumes; playwriting; directing; set design; and
audition skills. Arbogast said students who don’t want to appear on-stage can learn skills such as costuming, makeup and
stage lighting.
He also noted that LCPS stage productions have done well in regional and state competitions and in the peer-judged
Cappies awards program.
Parent Wendy Marco spoke on behalf of creating a musical theater magnet school to meet the needs of students pursuing
a career in theater. Marco’s activism resulted in a magnet program being approved by the School Board last year before it
was killed during
budget reconciliation. “I was frustrated because, while we have great programs in our schools, for those kids who want to
take it to the next level, we don’t have it here.”
A performing arts academy would give advanced students “another level of training that is above and beyond what is
offered at their home school…To raise the bar for those kids who are ready for more, want more and know that’s what
they want to do for their future.”
Marco said the arts are just as important as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in a student’s education.
“STEM education is going to get us nowhere unless we have the creative thinkers to do something with it, to make it
useful, to make it exciting.”
Marco said she discovered something while surveying Virginia school divisions with a population of 30,000 or more last
year: 88 percent of them have magnet programs in the arts.
Marco said she heard concerns that a magnet program would hurt drama productions at students’ home high schools.
She didn’t think this was a valid concern. “When you challenge kids, when you set that bar up here, then more kids want
to do it, not less…So we shouldn’t be afraid that if we offer higher-level programs that we’re lose kids.”
LCPS World Languages and Cultures Supervisor Suzette Wyhs spoke about advances in the way the school division
teaches foreign languages. During the past decade, she said LCPS has aligned its curriculum, made offerings throughout
the school division more uniform and made foreign language courses more academically challenging.
“The courses lacked rigor, they lacked consistency and students lacked the literacy ability to pass the (AP) test,” Wyhs
said of the curriculum of a decade ago. “…It was not serving the students of our district.”
Since then, the focus of foreign language instruction has shifted. “We focused more on learning than teaching.”
Teachers are working more collaboratively in schools and between schools. LCPS is hiring and retaining better foreign
language teachers and there is more ongoing professional development, said Wyhs. In addition, courses throughout
Loudoun were synchronized so students were receiving the same level of instruction. “Now, when students move from
one school to another, they’re on the same page with the other school.”
Foreign language teachers also use many digital resources because textbooks were not meeting students’ needs.
“Teachers are using a lot of technology to teach students. They connect with schools in other countries, they do
exchanges…
“We look to have graduates with 21st century communication skills, a knowledge and understanding of cultures and the
ability to communicate and connect with people of other cultures.”
LCPS offers French, German, Latin and Spanish from seventh to 12th grades. (American Sign Language and Mandarin
Chinese are offered in high school.) “We want to make sure students have enough time to really immerse in the
language,” said Whys.
The proof that the new approach to instruction is working can be seen in the scores on Advanced Placement (AP) tests,
said Whys. Between 2004 and 2007, 964 students took AP tests with 573 of them scoring a 1 or 2; below the level
needed to obtain college credit. From 2012 to 2014, 1,520 students took AP exams with 1,047 scoring high enough to
obtain college credit. (In 2012, only 10 students received a 1 on the AP exam out of the 502 who took the test.)
Michael Alison Chandler, who has reported on education for The Washington Post since 2005, talked about the language
programs in school districts throughout the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan area. She has found an increased presence of
language programs at the elementary level; something she wishes had been available to her. “I didn’t start a foreign
language until seventh grade, when it’s introduced in a lot of schools and I feel like I missed out on something. I’ve always
been interested in languages, but I’ve always struggled to pick it up… I never became fluent in another language.”
Chandler said she sought not to repeat this deficiency by enrolling her 2-year-old son in a bilingual pre-school.
Declining numbers of elementary schools nationwide are offering foreign language instruction, Chandler said, because of
the time constraints imposed by No Child Left Behind, standardized testing and budget cuts. In the Washington area,
some of these programs are parent-sponsored.
The next LEAP meeting will be January 14th. LCPS Superintendent Dr. Eric Williams will go over his proposed budget.