The Delaware Arts Alliance releases a new plan to support arts and tourism as part of the state’s post-pandemic economic recovery.

The Creative Economy Advancement and Tourism Expansion, or CREATE Plan, is the first of its kind in the nation. The plan tackles post-pandemic challenges and provides actionable solutions to strengthen Delaware’s creative economy.

DAA Executive Director Neil Kirschling explains they formed the plan with feedback from over 600 Delawareans through online surveys, stakeholder focus groups, and events conducted last year, producing an economic impact analysis of the creative economy in Delaware.

“We heard over and over again that there is a lot of excitement and energy coming out of the pandemic,” Kirschling says. “Arts organizations survived a really difficult time for their budgets and are now looking at this new reality post-COVID, looking to us for recommendations to the state for ways to support them, and thinking about how they can do business differently.”

DAA also designed an online asset map – a searchable index of more than 2500 creative economy assets in Delaware.

Finally, DAA crafted an action plan with 25 policy recommendations for strengthening the state’s arts and tourism sectors.

“We hope that those who see these recommendations will agree with us on these goals of stimulating economic activity, putting cultural tourism at the heart of Delaware’s brand, providing more equitable access to arts education in public schools, breaking down silos and catalyzing cross-sector collaboration and really tackling some inequality that exists currently within the creative economy,” Kirschling says.

Those recommendations cover arts funding, education, industry support, and more. The action steps are designed for everyone – government, businesses, artists and community members alike.

For example, Kirschling says the plan suggests updating event licensing and permitting – noting feedback from focus groups often mentioned the process for obtaining special event permits is difficult. This would include creating a statewide “one-stop-shop” for licensing and permitting, a “best practice” that Kirschling says is happening nationwide.

Kirschling says the plan also calls for the creative economy to be included in statewide business and economic development communications and programs.

“In polling our artistic businesses we learned that they all need financial support, business support, legal support, copyrights training, and these are the sorts of things that could be offered in statewide business and economic development programs,” Kirschling says.

Kirschling also highlighted modernizing Delaware’s media and film industry to encourage and attract film opportunities.

DAA’s plan recommends the state find more revenue streams to support creative businesses through grants for health, professional development, and education.

On education, Kirschling says they are hoping to secure arts funding for every student in public education and promote arts degrees in higher education.

HARRINGTON, Del. – The Waysiders, a cover band based out of Smyrna, Delaware, joined WMDT live at the Delaware State Fair.

They play a dynamic blend of alternative rock, classic rock, blues, and country.

Check out their interview with WMDT’s Rob Petree.

Southern Delaware high schools craft their own phone policies

With schools vary in their cultures and teaching approaches, schools in southern Delaware have approached phone policies differently particularly at the high school level where students are more mature and responsible for their decisions.

Brandywine High School and the Smyrna School District are among the latest schools to implement cell phone policies for the upcoming school year separate from the legislative pilot project.

At Sussex Central High School, there is no school-wide policy on phones, but a few classrooms have implemented their own rules.

“The teachers at my school, we have the autonomy to create our own cell phone policies,” said Jeff Gartman, who teaches media and technology. “The administration gives us that freedom to make our own decisions and they trust us to do what’s best for our classroom.”

A number of teachers at Sussex Central use phones as a tool to foster discussions or facilitate research among students. Yet, after 20 years of teaching, Gartman recognized the devices can also pose a distraction that needs to be addressed in his classroom.

“It piles up to lost time, lost engagement and getting kids being less productive and the whole environment being less effective,” he said. “Personally, I have been struggling with this for years, trying different ways of managing it and I was just not successful with really fighting off the distraction that the phones are to students when they have them in their possession.”

What works for him and other teachers in his building is eliminating cell phone access, a policy he started last spring. This decision prompted him to purchase a hanging storage organizer with little pouches. Each pouch is assigned to a student with their name for every period throughout the day.

“Students come into my room and there’s a pouch hanging on the wall with a bunch of individual pouches. They’ve got their name on one of them. They come in, they put the phone in there,” he described. “I’ve even got it rigged up so they can charge their phone while they are in class, about two minutes before the bell rings at the end of class I allow them to come get it.”

After two months of implementing the policy, despite initial concerns, he now feels accomplished and pleased with the positive feedback from parents and students. He has noticed a noticeable improvement in his students and the overall classroom environment.

“For the most part taking the distraction away just added to the whole environment and kids were more productive, less distracted, and got more done,” said Gartman.

State Sen. Paradee says the phone pouches test pilot may not be ready in time for this school year since the state Department of Education is just drafting its regulation. He says the goal is to have the funds available for schools by the middle of the school year.

He encourages parents, guardians and caregivers to give the test pilot a chance. “My message to all the parents, grandparents, caregivers: hang in there, give it a shot and we’ll work through this.”