FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The data for the Oklahoma Arts Education Data Dashboard is collected from Oklahoma school districts in a yearly accreditation report. The data is self-reported and may include reporting errors.

If you see inaccurate information, contact Oklahomans for the Arts at info@ok4arts.org

In Oklahoma and across the nation, middle school classes are part of the PK-8 elementary grade span. Therefore, middle school visual art classes are reported as “ES Art,” middle school band classes are reported as “ES Band,” etc. The enrollment numbers for those courses include all students in grades PK-8. To understand the middle school enrollment for a certain course, look at enrollment by grade level or filter a view for a certain middle school site.

In the Oklahoma Arts Education Data Dashboard, the Overview tab counts every student as one student, even if they are taking multiple arts classes. For example, a student who is enrolled in concert choir and art I is counted as one arts student in the Overview tab. On the Arts Disciplines tab, you’ll see a higher number for the total of arts students because that student is counted in every discipline area they are enrolled in (so the student is counted once for music and once for visual arts).

Within the dashboard, a majority of teachers reported are teachers who are teaching the arts for the full school day and have a degree in the area they are teaching. Some elementary classroom teachers with older certifications may have been reported as teaching music or visual art due to the different certification expectations of that time. In the future, the Oklahoma State Department of Education will work with districts to clarify the reporting of teacher data, especially those teachers with older certifications.

The Oklahoma Arts Education Data Dashboard does not include charter schools or Career Tech sites in the data. Charter schools were excluded because they do not follow the same expectations as traditional public schools; namely, their teachers do not need to be certified in a subject area in order to teach it. For example, some charter schools may have math certified teachers teaching visual art or elementary certified teachers teaching high school band. Those educators may be excelling in their positions, but as this dashboard focuses on arts education taught by certified arts educators, the inclusion of those teachers would skew the data. In the case of virtual charter schools, one educator would be counted for one single student, artificially inflating the number of Oklahoma arts educators by hundreds if not thousands. Career Tech offerings were also excluded from the dashboard. Career Tech sites fill a void for many districts when it comes to arts classes, but since these courses are often taught away from the high school and may only be available to certain students, they do not represent an equitable arts education.