Tucson Unified is proud to announce that the District’s Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) Department recently received a $2 million endowment from the H. Eugene and Ruth Jones Charitable Fund held at the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, which is a long-time supporter of the arts through our schools. The endowment was approved by the Governing Board on September 16.OMA helps integrate arts into classrooms by addressing brain-based learning. Arts are integrated into core curriculum subjects, such as math, English language arts, and science.
“[The endowment] is targeted at funding our OMA programs across the district,” Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Trujillo said. “Instruments, materials, supplies, cost of staffing, salaries – to make sure that our OMA program is a permanent fixture of the TUSD community and lives on regardless of the difficult funding situation school districts are experiencing right now.”With the endowment, the original intent of the OMA model will be able to live on in perpetuity and affirms OMA’s place within the curriculum.
