Segerstrom Center for the Arts

Arts Teach reaches approximately 225,000 students, teachers, and adults each year in nearly 250 schools and partner organizations in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego Counties. Arts Teach is beloved by education and community partners alike, as evidenced by better test scores, improved problem solving, and focus in the classroom. Teachers also report improved confidence and expertise in integrating the arts into personal teaching styles and established connections between the arts and other subjects across the curriculum.

This program allows the Center to continue to introduce youth to and engage them in the performing arts. Arts Teach is an enriching arts-in-education program that provides the wonder and excitement of live performance and hands-on activities to schools and community organizations.

On Stage at the Center provides critical support to schools in Orange County and Southern California by enhancing K-12 education in ways that improve academic performance, energize teachers, and transform learning environments. Each year, On Stage at the Center reaches approximately 9,000 students and teachers throughout Orange County.

Educators praise On Stage for its effectiveness in introducing the arts to and positively impacting the lives of the young people who have participated in the program: “I am very impressed with the success [On Stage] produces in inspiring children to talk and write about their theater experience. It opens up a whole world of creativity that sadly is not always evident in today’s educational system.” – Teacher, DeMille Elementary

The mission of Studio D is to To create an intentionally inclusive space for students of all abilities to explore and develop their full creative potential through high quality, joyful arts instruction.

The goals of the program are to encourage confident exploration; focus on capabilities and growth; foster joy in community and peer connection; celebrate our students' interests.

Program objectives include a positive changes in the students’ physical abilities or behavior will be observed as a result of participating in this program over the course of one series, families and caregivers will want to continue being a part of the program as a result of these positive changes and the Center will expand to more off-site locations.

The impact of the Disney Musicals in Schools program is growing exponentially over time. Since the program’s inception in 2014, it has reached over 7,000 students in 41 schools across Orange County.

Westmont Elementary School is a particularly striking success story. The 300-student K-5 school participated in the second year of the Disney Musicals in Schools program during the 2015-2016 school year. The school saw such positive effects in its students and the surrounding community as a result of the program that it soon after began the process of becoming the first visual and performing arts academy magnet school in the Ocean View School District. It officially completed the process in 2018. Principal Sue Broderson says, “We were so excited to see the growth in the kids, not just arts-wise, but carried into the classroom. We said, ‘We need to do more."

Program alumni serve as real-life symbols of success and provide positive reinforcement to Summer at the Center participants. Over its 33-year history, Summer at the Center has redefined the lives of over 1,000 Orange County teens. In 1994, Luis Castillo was one of those teens; now he is a social worker who helps kids with similar backgrounds find their voice. He often brings these youth to the Center’s various education programs. Luis is a fierce advocate of Summer at the Center: “Summer at the Center is the program that saved my life. It taught me to think of myself in a positive way at a time when I needed true direction.”

The program has also drawn the attention and engagement of local justices in Juvenile Court, who view the program as a productive alternative to traditional sentencing. Judge Douglas Hatchimonji of the Orange County Juvenile Court writes, “Far too often our kids see themselves as nobody, as in nobody cares, nobody believes they are worth anything, that nobody believes they have value. When our kids try like all humans to be somebody, it far too often takes the form of being a gang member, a teen mother, or someone whose moniker is painted on a wall for all to see. Summer at the Center teaches our kids that if they take the risk and dare to sing, dance, act, and expose themselves to the bright lights and the eyes and ears of hundreds of people, they can be ‘Somebody’. This is a priceless gift.”