It's The Law: The Alabama State Board of Education approved new arts standards in 2017, to be effective in the Fall of 2018. Compliance with these standards is currently optional, but will be law by the beginning of the 2018-19 school year. All arts education programming within Alabama schools, whether delivered by an arts specialist certified by the State Department of Education, a practicing artist teaching in the schools (Teaching Artist), or by cultural arts organizations partnering with schools, must align instruction using these standards.

The Alabama Course of Study: Arts Education 2017 includes content standards for five categories: dance, media arts. music, theatre, and visual arts. Creative writing standards may be found inthe English Language Arts standards. The new standards are process based and are designed to build toward arts literacy. They include the artistic processes of creating, performing/presenting/producing, responding and connecting.

For a downladable pdf of the complete set of arts standards, click the pin wheel below...