Creative Bridges bridges gaps in Sonoma arts education

Creative Bridges brings 22 organizations under one umbrella

Between Art Escape, the Sonoma Community Center, the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and more than a dozen other nonprofits focused on enriching children’s lives with art, the kids in Sonoma have plenty of avenues for exploring their creativity. When the pandemic disrupted how those artistic experiences were administered, 22 organizations band together with a shared goal of providing more complete arts education under a new umbrella.

“We build Creative Bridges,” said Connie Schlelein, chair and founding member of the new effort, Creative Bridges. “Together we’re all magic.”

Schlelein was a professional arts educator in Colorado and served as vice president of the National Art Education Association before retiring to Sonoma Valley. She noticed that California schools were struggling.

“Prop. 13 really deconstructed California’s education system,” she said of the tax law that stripped funding from schools.

Schlelein saw that elementary music and art were not taught in the schools in an equitable regular fashion. “They were hit and miss, some schools had it, some schools didn’t,” she said. “There was no vertical articulated curriculum for art and music, nor was the curriculum integrated with the other subjects.”

Schlelein decided to try and do something about it. She got involved with Sonoma County’s art council, Creative Sonoma. She joined the leadership team and a task force of about 40 professionals who worked together to create a strategic master arts plan, called the Sonoma County Framework.

After that, Schlelein shifted her focus to Sonoma Valley. “I realized that there was a huge number of people just in the Valley that had the appetite to move an initiative forward,” she said.

She left her leadership position in Creative Sonoma and began to build Creative Bridges in Sonoma Valley, a program that she hoped might become a model for the whole county.

For decades, the numerous nonprofits working on supporting the arts for children in Sonoma Valley were in competition for funding. Schlelein helped them to trust that they could gain more financial support by working collectively, like rising tides lifting all boats.

Even grant makers, like the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, have joined Creative Bridges and are supporting their mission of “Re-imagining Education.”

Schlelein said they spent the first 18 months creating a strong alliance and now, coming out of the pandemic, they’re working strategically to improve arts education.

“We’re focused on whole child education, and that social, emotional component and creative expression is really important for kids,” Schlelein said. She noted that it is especially true right now as children deal with the stresses of the pandemic and catching back up academically and socially.

She hopes the new alliance will soon have even more community involvement, including student members and a parent coalition. “We’ve taken the attitude that it takes a village to raise a child,” she said.

Creative Sonoma provided Creative Bridges with leadership training. Through streamlining communication and seeking feedback from schools and teachers on how to improve programming, the Creative Bridges alliance is positioning itself to meet its goals.

For more than 20 years, the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art’s longstanding education program, Art Rewards The Students (ARTS), has brought art into the schools for fourth- and fifth-graders, as well as taking students into the museum for an immersive experience. Their helping to streamline the alliance’s work within the school district.

Schlelein said they had one request for the new superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District, Dr. Adrian Palazuelos. They asked that someone on the administrative team join their alliance of 22 nonprofits to help coordinate the arts resources at local schools.

“Our new superintendent said not only would he provide someone, but he would be the person to join our organization,” Schlelein said. “It’s very encouraging.”

When Palazuelos learned about Creative Bridges he jumped at the opportunity to go and meet with them. Palazuelos has worked as a superintendent, principal and teacher in several districts throughout California.

“I will say it’s definitely one of a kind,” he said of Creative Bridges. “I think it has tremendous, tremendous positive opportunities for this community. This alignment of groups may have very different approaches, may have different interests, but in the end they’re really about pushing forward this ambitious agenda around being able to recognize the arts, cultivate it and I think moreover, creating a construct in our community that is supportive of all members of our community.”

Palazuelos noted that the pandemic created a tremendous amount of challenges but that it also created new opportunities and horizons. “We’ve got a lot of work to do here in our district academically,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do in supporting all of our students with their social and emotional needs, and I think the arts provide a really unique opportunity to provide those needs. I think that being able to show their creativity and their experience is really empowering for them.”

Palazuelos said he always sought out such opportunities professionally — those sort of magnets that would get a student out of bed and into school.

“I think the arts create that opportunity, that connection, that draw to come to school and be part of something like maybe the marching band,” he said.

Michael Fecskes is the artistic director of the Vivo or Valley Vibes Orchestra at El Verano Elementary and active in Creative Bridges. “I think music in itself can be such a tool for young children, whether they have a natural talent for music or not,” he said. “It kind of creates an anchor for them.”

Creative Bridges has helped supply instruments for all the children involved in orchestra. During the pandemic classes continued via Zoom and 90% of the students stuck with the Valley Vibes music training. They are now bringing music classes to Dunbar Elementary and working to expand their outreach to other schools.

Fecskes grew up in Sonoma and went to Sonoma Valley High School. He said he’s been waiting for an initiative like Creative Bridges. “When I hear this group of very invested, smart adults sitting around seeing what we can do for the children of Sonoma Valley right now, today, it’s so exciting,” he said. “As opposed to being in competition with our partners in the arts, truly we have partners now, we have friendly neighbors now. The students in Sonoma are like one-third of the people who live here. So, to me it’s such a big deal, personally and professionally.”

Lexi Bakkar is the youth program manager and ceramics studio coordinator for the Sonoma Community Center. Bakkar feels the most important thing they’ve gained from Creative Bridges is the connection.

“We all sort of work in a silo, doing our own thing,” Bakkar said. “Creative Bridges really created a network to reach out to partner organizations and ask for help and to work on projects together. I think that’s really beneficial for students to have this alliance of partners.”

She added, “We’re working strategically, we’re not stepping on each other’s toes but forming partnerships. Like, to be able to expand the work into schools is huge, it would be so hard for us to get into the schools alone.”

During the pandemic, Bakkar offered a virtual pottery series every week. Parents would come pick up clay and kids took part in the lesson via Zoom. “It was so popular,” she said. “I thought it was really a great tool during the pandemic.”

Bakkar, a ceramics artist, appreciates how children respond to the medium and wants all children to have the opportunity to work with clay. “I find that clay can be really healing for kids to work with,” she said. “I think it’s really grounding and they just get it. It’s a medium that’s just so easy to get into and so meditative once you do.”

Natalie Wallace is the art program manager of the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley, which is also a member of Creative Bridges. “I feel that art gives kids a voice,” Wallace said. “We all kind of specialize in different things and some of the things might overlap a little bit, but I think with our connections together and working for the common goal, we’re able to reach more kids which is all that we want at the end of the day. I think we’re stronger together.”