Art

Waukee Art Department

The Waukee Elementary Art classroom is a place where wonder and curiosity can flourish. It’s a place where students have a variety of opportunities to express their thoughts and feelings about their identity, their community, and the world beyond. They will have the freedom and comfort needed for growth and learning through imaginations, discoveries, experiments, critical thinking, failures, and problem-solving. They will be given our trust to make their own artistic decisions along the path of their own unique creative process. Finally, we believe in the importance of instilling a love and joy for art making.

The Waukee Secondary Art Department aspires for learners to be brave, independent, and driven by valuing relationships that nurture vulnerability and the potential for all humans to create.

Art Course Standards, Benchmarks, Objectives (SBO) and Curriculum Review Process

The Waukee Art Department formally adopted the National Coalition of Core Arts Standards in 2023. The National Coalition for Core Arts is an umbrella organization that created standards for Visual Art, Music, Dance, and Theatre; the National Art Education Association has endorsed these. These standards were revised in 2014, the first revision to national arts standards in 20 years and adopted by the State of Iowa in 2017. These standards divide the artistic process into four components: Creating, Presenting, Responding, and Connecting.

Waukee Art classes will engage in experiences in each of the four components, providing students with the chance to follow an artistic idea from inception to presentation to interpretation by others while also studying art within the greater context of the world. Students enrolled in high school courses focused on specialty mediums will also receive instruction around best practices for that art form, informed by an additional benchmark in the Create standard written by WCSD staff. All standards were Board-approved in 2023.

Waukee K-12 Art Standards, Benchmarks, and Objectives