Our Partnership with The St. Paul Conservatory of Music

In 2016-17 Academia Cesar Chavez entered into a partnership with the St. Paul Conservatory of Music to implement a string program at Academia Cesar Chavez (ACC) in Kindergarten scholars play the violin.  The string program will continue to grow each year for scholars in Kindergarten through 5 grade learn to play the violin.  Each year we continue to add one grade level in the program.  In 3rd grade, we will introduce the cello.  The string program is important to ACC for three reasons outlined below.

First, we believe that supporting scholars to play a musical instrument would help them to do better in school.  We serve 342 scholars in grade K-5 and 95% of them quality for free or reduced price lunch.  Second, we believe that research shows that playing musical instrument correlate with increased academic achievement especially in mathematics.  We are committed to improving the learning outcomes of our scholars and adding a string program is making our scholars’ learning fun and meaningful.  Thirdly, we believe in unleashing the talent of our scholars by giving them access to music by learning to play the violin and cello.  The violin in addition to academic learning help scholars to become well-rounded and open more opportunities for them in life.  Many of our scholars have taken interest in other musical instrument because they are learning to play the violin in school.  They can recognize sounds, musical notes or  create new songs.  In 6th grade, scholars can join the ACC Mariachi band and ACC Middle School Orchestra Band.