It is 4 p.m. on Tuesday and most kids at Greenbelt Middle School are on their way home. But one group of seventh graders stays after on a mission: to make a movie. “They organized all of this,” graphic design teacher Cortland Jones said. “I was just told, ‘Mr. Jones, we’re meeting in your room on the 13th.’” The students met during National Arts in Education Week – September 11 through 17 – a week that passed without emphasis, according to teachers, because here art education is emphasized year-round. Greenbelt schools have seen a resurgence in art since Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) CEO Kevin Maxwell has championed art integration into the curriculum in his first two years as superintendent. Greenbelt Elementary art teacher Zsolt Nagy, who graduated from Towson University with an art education degree in 2012, has seen the changes firsthand. “My first two years, I was at three schools,” Nagy said. “The art program in Prince George’s wasn’t as elaborate back then.” At the elementary level, Nagy said, art teachers were often shared among three or four schools. Now teaching full time at Greenbelt Elementary, he focuses much of his instruction on integrating subjects like science, math and social studies. Right now, his second graders are making clay sundials. “So it’s kind of a lesson in integrating time and how time was told before electricity,” Nagy said. Magnolia Elementary art teacher Jessica Wade still teaches at two schools, but she’s optimistic about the improvements.
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