“They show up more on days they have music,” a powerful statement shared by Sammy Gonzales Zeira, on the impact of music education on students of his Arts Access Miami programs. The VAPA Foundation hosted Zeira, a guiding force for Arts Access Miami, for a special event at the Comic Con Museum in January where San Diego arts education leaders could learn about the successful program and ways to implement it further in our community.
Here’s a link to the abridged video of Sammy’s keynote presentation: https://youtu.be/eLqGsbS5FOI
Arts Access Miami brought together the philanthropic community, civic leaders and arts partners to facilitate arts and music education to more than 11,000 public school students throughout Miami Dade. Collaboration was key to the success of their program – where previously, arts groups felt they were in competition with each other for funds, teachers, supplies and students – they now use data to identify needs and pool resources.
Today, Arts Access Miami provides arts and music programming to 428 classrooms and 55 sites across the region. They cut through barriers by creating an accelerated pipeline to getting qualified individuals necessary teaching credentials. They offered subsidized housing for teachers. Not enough instruments for classes? They bridged the gap by repairing broken down instruments to get more hands-on learning for students. Not enough participants? Hold more concerts to get students interested in the program. Arts Access Miami also meets with all 19 of its program’s school principals to get real-time data on what is working and what needs changing.
The success of the program is evidenced by hard data from one of its sites, Carol City Middle School, which experienced a 60 percent reduction in absences and tardies. Third party reports showed strong positive youth development at the school – the students felt supported by their teachers and excited to attend class. Reading and math scores improved dramatically. And, now 81% of students are enrolled in music class as compared to just 28% prior to Arts Access Miami.
There is no slowing down for Zeira who plans to help Arts Access Miami grow exponentially by 2032, with the goal of bringing together all arts and music organizations and serving each and every school throughout the Miami Dade region.
To hear Zeira’s entire presentation to the VAPA Foundation, visit!