Art Education Scholarship Program

Chesterfield Arts has designed a program to meet the visual art and creative learning needs of children and adults who require financial assistance. The application process evaluates student’s school and community involvement, household income and education history including grade point average. The scholarship program does not stop with students receiving the financial assistance, but also follows the student through the program here to ensure success.

Who? Up to ten (10) students per semester and/or thirty (30) students per year will be chosen to enter the Arts Education Scholarship Program. Each student will have the opportunity to choose one visual arts class of his or her choice per semester, which may include pottery, sculpture, painting, illustration, jewelry making and much more.

Why? Why is there a need for an Arts Education Scholarship Program for the Chesterfield, West County and surrounding metropolitan areas? Research shows that students who are involved in the arts in and out of school have higher levels of academic achievement (grades and standardized test scores); reduced discipline problems; stay in school longer; and have better attitudes about self, school and community. These outcomes are supported by studies in neuroscience that demonstrate positive relationships between participation in the arts, cognitive development, and learning. It is not surprising that visual arts instruction improves reading readiness, or that assembling shapes and colors in a portrait helps students to understand and use symbols in reading, math and writing. Art education has been identified by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as an area of critical need. Art is a required subject in Missouri public elementary schools (50 minutes per week), and visual art is often used to fulfill the Fine Arts credit required for high school graduation.

A well-rounded education includes the arts and is essential to stimulating the creativity and innovation that will prove critical to young people competing in a global economy by:

• helping students explore realities and ideas that cannot be summarized simply and may be difficult to express in words or numbers,
• leading them to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills to resolve questions that do not have a single, correct, fill-in-the-bubble solution, and
• teaching teamwork and collaborative learning with their peers.

Perhaps the most important attribute children can learn from exposure to diverse visual arts and mediums is an appreciation of the extraordinary diversity in the world itself.

“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.” - Joseph Addison

To apply, please download our form or contact Annie Spiller, Education and Outreach Coordinator.