Music Mentorship After School programming

K-12 STEAM education

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

NMS is located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, which falls in between the 2nd and 3rd percentile of healthy community conditions according to the California Healthy Places Index (CHPI). Nearly 90% of our students are from communities that are similarly in the lowest quartile of the CHPI. Since 1914, NMS has provided affordable, high-quality music education programs as we believe that the arts are core to healthy, vibrant communities. Of the 13 public K-12 schools closest to our facility, only 6 of them offer music instruction. According to a report by the L.A. County Arts Education Collective, less than 38% of students in K-5th Grade have access to music education through their schools. The Music Mentorship Program is designed to increase consecutive, consistent music programming in schools that fall within this demographic, and with whom NMS has identified as a partner in this program beginning at 2nd grade, and continuing throughout the elementary school education.

NMS believes that the arts are core to healthy, vibrant communities and a whole education. By providing consistent, consecutive music education after school and on the weekends beginning at 2nd grade, this program will build skills that are transferable to all areas of academics and in life. Students will work with mentors to build music skills, social emotional skills such as confidence, leadership, ensemble building, and discipline in work ethic, and engagement. Each semester will culminate in a performance for the families and community, further building a showcase for talent, ensemble, and pride of achievement. At each semester, NMS will build a new group of students to follow this same format, as the initial students continue to build their skill development and investment. The goal is to follow these students throughout their elementary education, providing increasing support and music education so they matriculate into middle and upper school music programs with strength and years of development. Each school ensemble will be unique and customized to the schools they are currently in, and the schools they intend to grow into. Additionally, all students participating will share their attendance and academic records(anonymously), to inform a national study on the impact of the arts led by the D'Addario Foundation through the Immersive Music Challenge.

LA County is built of a diverse fabric of culture, industries, communities, challenges and opportunities. By beginning this level of arts education in elementary school, this program builds the essential skills that music education develops and will transfer to the whole of each individual student and community indefinitely. In addition to music development, we build the social emotional learning skills that empower each student and group to find and use their leadership to influence, identify, and innovate. Low income neighborhoods in large cities are often marked by challenges, and this programming is focused on building solutions, both individually and collectively. By building the skillset of these students in elementary school and consecutively increasing the program, we will see a growth of musicians and artists from these neighborhoods connect with the larger Los Angeles voices and perspectives. We will see confidence and growth of innovators, teachers, leaders, and joy.

This program is connected to a national study exploring the impact of arts education on low income neighborhoods. In addition to our measurement of impact internally through attendance, surveys, conversations, assessment and student engagement, attendance and academic records will (anonymously) be registered into a database for the Immersive Music Challenge, in which NMS is an Implementation partner, for a 5 year test of concept to prove that reading and math skills increase when students engage with arts programming consistently and consecutively.