National Arts in Education Week is a festival celebrating the fine arts in academia and school life. Every year, from Sept. 9 to Sept. 13, the week sees art teachers banding together to put together events for students to engage with the arts. Here at Richard Montgomery, the Fine Arts Department did exactly that.

Let’s start with some context: kickstarted by the National Art Education Association, an organization of dedicated art leaders and teachers, the celebration was inaugurated in 2010 after a bill was passed by Congress. The purpose was to enhance artistic education to all students— not just to those taking an art class—and increase the equitability of access to art supplies, material and instruction.

At RM, Fine Arts teachers pursued this mission by hosting a series of activities for students to partake in during lunchtime. These ranged from getting their caricatures drawn by new Studio, AP and IB Art teacher Addison Coryell and volunteer students, painting meditative stones with ceramics teacher Amy Weaver and Fine Arts Resource teacher Amanda Wall, and the daily “McDoodle with McD”—a draw-and-talk hosted by AP Art History teacher Mike McDermott. However, it wasn’t just visual arts classes involved in this endeavor. “Music, and then photography, and digital art as well [were also available to the students],” Ms. Coryell said. “Band and choir were able to put on some performances, too.”

Within RM, the arts curriculum is not as underfunded as it may be in other areas. Thus, the focus of Arts in Education Week shifted from jumping over an access barrier to helping motivate students to pursue their interests, giving them that friendly push of confidence. “Our purpose was to give people who are nervous or interested a chance,” Ms. Coryell said. “They might become interested in taking these arts electives and find a passion.”

School-hosted activities always have a chance to not hit, especially with the short attention span of high schoolers—something the Fine Arts Department was concerned about. However, it seemed like the Arts in Education Week efforts did not go unnoticed by students. “Many students would go back in line to have another artist draw their caricature,” Ms. Coryell said. “Sometimes, we’d have students [at all stations] who’d say they’d come back, then actually come back. It was surprising!”

Students confirmed that the week was extremely entertaining, with activities providing a whole range of opportunities: some stressed about homework, college applications and exams painted worry stones, and others came to the celebrations to interact with their favorite teachers or methods of artwork. “I just had a lot of fun,” senior Zindzhi Ottley said. “The music… I went in for printmaking, and it was great.”

Local student-artists and art students are also happy with the expansion of artistic activities. “It’s nice to see more and more people doing art, and more and more art get out there,” senior Mia Hall said. “I hope we can have more arts-related activities this year!”