Expressing support for the designation of February 28, 2025, as Community Arts Education Day.
H. Res. 165 is a resolution introduced in the 119th Congress by Representative Velázquez (with Representative Jackson of Illinois) that expresses support for designating February 28, 2025, as Community Arts Education Day. The text provides a broad, laudatory description of community arts education, emphasizing its inclusive, participatory nature and its potential to foster creativity, cultural expression, social transformation, and a sense of belonging. It notes the important roles of leaders in the field (culture bearers, teaching artists, administrators) and highlights claimed benefits such as enhanced social-emotional skills, health, and later college enrollment for students engaged in the arts. The resolution is symbolic in nature—an expression of support rather than a law or mandate—and it was referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Key Points
- 1Expresses support for designation of February 28, 2025, as Community Arts Education Day.
- 2Offers a detailed definition of community arts education, describing it as inclusive, broad in discipline, participatory, and connected to community contexts beyond formal schooling.
- 3Recognizes the roles of community arts education leaders (culture bearers, teaching artists, administrators) who provide essential arts instruction inside and outside formal education settings.
- 4Describes community arts education as liberatory, uplifting culture, heritage, and history, and notes benefits such as imagination, critical learning, life skills, health, and a sense of shared community.
- 5Cites research-based claims that participation in the arts supports social-emotional competencies and that arts-engaged students tend to enroll in four-year colleges or competitive colleges at higher rates; frames the designation as a vehicle for activism, self-expression, and healing.