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Getting Creative

Getting Creative

Getting Creative: Arts education is struggling in many Colorado communities. Meet the people who are keeping it vibrant.
11-year-old Sam poses with the guitar she got as a birthday present. Her parents signed her up for free guitar lessons through Prescription for the Arts, a Steamboat Spring initiative that aims to improve youth wellbeing through the arts.
Leigh Paterson
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As arts education becomes more limited in some schools, arts programs for wellness are launching around the country. In Steamboat Springs, art experiences can now be prescribed as an antidote to stress or isolation.

A high school boy wearing a tan-colored tee shirt and a white baseball cap points to a black box on a table. It has a camera on top, and inside the box are cords and other technical equipment. Next to him is a man in a navy tee shirt with brown hair leaning down and fixing something inside the box. They're inside a wooden shack. To the right of them is a window with metal fencing in front of it.
Emma VandenEinde
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While some Northern Colorado schools aren’t fully funding traditional arts classes, like painting and choir, others are shifting their classes to be more career-focused.

Band teacher Aaron Carnahan is at the front of the band room leading students seated in a semicircle through a song.
Jennifer Coombes
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The school in Brighton had no band program a few years ago. Now hundreds participate.