But at a state Board of Regents meeting Monday, officials suggested that the highly selective program for gifted teens may be incompatible with the agency’s stated mission of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Education officials have been taking heat from advocates and colleagues for failing to secure state funding to restore the prestigious program. The department had requested $2 million in additional state funds to sustain the program, but the money wasn’t included in the state spending plan enacted last week.
“We are at a moment where arts education is critically important to the social-emotional well-being of children… Our students really need this, particularly now, and for the next decade,” Regent Shino Tanikawa said at Monday’s meeting.
The four-week residential summer school — which allows talented high school students to study with some of the world’s foremost artists in the visual and performing arts — has been operated and subsidized by the state since 1970.
The program was offered remotely in the summers of 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Education Department canceled the program this year citing funding challenges and “virtual-format fatigue” and announced a scholarship program instead, prompting an outcry from program directors, parents, alumni and proponents of arts education.
On Monday, state education officials said they would continue to evaluate the program and explore how it fits with the department’s larger objective of providing a high-quality arts experience to all New York students.
To attend the program, students must be identified as having exceptional artistic talents and then compete for a select number of seats. About 33 percent of past attendees received partial or full scholarships, according to the Education Department.
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