Each year the Arizona Department of Education honors high school students with the State Seal of Arts Proficiency.
The prestigious accolade is awarded to those who have excelled in media and visual arts, dance, theater or music throughout their high school career.
The award was created by a bipartisan state law passed in 2019 and recognizes students who achieve a minimum number of credits in various artistic disciplines, finish 80 hours of arts related extracurricular activities and complete a capstone project.
Robert Panzer, director of arts education for Peoria Unified School District said, “And they’re really kind of going down that pathway of artistic literacy, so that idea that they’re understanding the tools and the ways that particular art form lets them express an idea or lets them express some kind of emotion or create meaning within an art form.”
Fifty students across all seven high schools in the district were awarded the seal.
Hear Robert Panzer's interview With Tom Maxedon
