Physical Education, Music and Fine Arts are alive and well in Los Altos School District! With so many neighboring school districts forced to eliminate these programs completely for their elementary school students, we are grateful for your contributions to the Los Altos Educational Foundation that allow us to continue enriching the lives of our students. We have had to be responsive to the times and become leaner and more efficient with time and money. Fifth graders select from fewer instrument choices and the frequency of instruction has been modified. Even so, we are now able to offer new choices as well.

In addition to physical education and instrumental music classes, students will take three fine arts offerings during the school year: digital design, visual art, and drama. While we had previously asked you to prioritize which two of the three arts classes your child would prefer, we are able to facilitate all students participating in all classes for a trimester each. This is in accordance with State curriculum frameworks.

The team of fine arts and physical education teachers will be visiting each campus once a week during a two-hour block of time. During that block, students will participate in a physical education class, an instrumental music class (or non-instrumental focusing on music appreciation, genres, and theory for those choosing not to play an instrument), and a fine arts class. A sample course of study for each grade level is listed below:

This will happen every week of the school year beginning second or third week of school. In addition, fifth and sixth grade students will have an additional session of instrumental and vocal music for one semester (either semester 1 or semester 2) during the school year. Schools will have one concert this year, either in the winter or in the spring.

We look forward to the opportunity to provide our students a well-rounded education: to foster strong analytic and reasoning skills in addition to creative problem solving and critical thinking. We feel confident that with our strong core academic program and a variety of arts offerings, our children will be well prepared for their futures.