MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt County High School has been awarded a $10,000 grant for its arts program from the Georgia Department of Education for the 2019-2020 school year.

Schools in rural counties all over the state received grant money to help their fine arts programs, from music classes to visual art courses. Alongside Willie J. Williams Middle School, whose grant was described earlier this week, Colquitt County High School received the stART grant to improve their visual arts program. Whitney Pitts, the visual art instructor at Colquitt County High School was excited to see what the students would create with the tools bought with the grant money.

“We are using our grant money on five pottery wheels and a slab roller which will be used for the advanced ceramics classes and AP 3D Studio Course,” said Pitts.

The stART grants are a way of taking advantage of the flexibility found in the Every Student Succeeds Act in order to use some federal funds to support arts learning and other programs that offer a well-rounded education for students.

“It’s important to have a well-rounded experience throughout school and I feel that art gives kids an outlet,” Pitts said. “They are given choices and options and their artwork displays who they are. I think it’s good for kids to have that extracurricular course that sort of gives them an outlet – we have some students that say the reason they come to school and that they haven’t given up is because of the arts.”

Colquitt County High School serves an average of 1,700 students, many of whom attend art classes every day. According to the Georgia Department of Education, a student in the arts helps build a well-rounded education and individual.

“I’m just glad that the Department of Education is seeing how important the arts are to students and giving the opportunity for rural counties to get better equipment. It’s a great step in the right direction for Georgia and education in general,” said Pitts.