Our School
Academics at School 61

Arts Integration

Arts Integration

The Arts Coordinator provides teachers with a variety of resources (links, videos, books, art activities)

to share with their students during regular instruction.

School-wide celebrations include: 

Hispanic Heritage Month

Native American History Month

Chinese New Year

Diwali

African American History Month

Jazz Month

Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday

Earth Day

Arthur O. Eve's Birthday

Flag Day

mural saying YES WE CAN out of squares with student drawings on each square

Wendy Red Star (born 1981) is a modern artist from the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation. She was born in Billings, Montana, in the United States. Wendy uses humor and traditional Native American images in her art. She wants people to think about how Native Americans are shown in popular culture. Her art often mixes old ideas with new ones. It shows real cultural and gender identities. People have called her work "funny, brave, and dreamlike." In 2024, Wendy Red Star received a special award called a MacArthur Fellowship.

Music lovers call Ray Charles the Genius. Charles was a gifted singer and piano player who also wrote music. He blended gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz to create a new form of music called soul. Ray Charles Robinson was born on September 23, 1930, in Albany, Georgia. (He later dropped his last name, Robinson.) He grew up in Florida. Ray began losing his sight at a young age. By age 7 he was blind. He studied music at the School for the Deaf and Blind in Saint Augustine, Florida. In the late 1940s Charles played piano for blues and jazz bands. In the 1950s he started making records. His hit songs included “What’d I Say”; “Georgia on My Mind”; “Hit the Road, Jack”; and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Beginning in 1955 Charles toured throughout the United States and in other countries. Charles won 13 Grammy awards for his recordings. In 1986 he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Charles died on June 10, 2004, in Beverly Hills, California.