ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603030007
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Mar. 6
Clarification
Cave Spring High School teacher Sandi D'Alessandro, featured in a
story Saturday, was named Secondary Art Teacher of the Year by the
Virginia Art Education Association. The association also honors an
elementary school and a middle school art teacher each year.
SANDI D'ALESSANDRO, credited with helping develop the Cave Spring High art program, is Virginia's Art Teacher of the Year.
Sandi D'Alessandro loves blue horses, orange trees and green shops.
As an art teacher, she tries to get her students to break away from the conventional and see the world with a fresh eye.
Her students at Cave Spring High School say she helps them see creatively and pushes them to raise their expectations.
"She really cares about her students. She sees beauty in everybody's work, but she won't let people slack off," says Anna Karr, a junior in a sculpture class.
"If we ever have a problem, she is there to guide us," sophomore Matt Spetzler says.
Her approach is based on a passion for art.
"I provide the ingredients for creative problem-solving" D'Alessandro says.
D'Alessandro has been named Virginia's Art Teacher of the Year by the Virginia Art Education Association.
She is credited with helping foster growth in the Cave Spring High School art program. About 400 students, nearly a third of the student body, take some type of art course each year.
"When her name is mentioned, the faces of our students light up with enthusiasm," Principal Martha Cobble says.
Cobble says D'Alessandro's impact on students is apparent in their art displays and increased participation in art shows throughout the year.
D'Alessandro, 44, is also a professional artist whose paintings, watercolors and other works hang in many galleries and business establishments throughout Virginia and across the country.
"Being a practicing artist enables her to better prepare and enrich our students in art and lends credibility to possible opportunities for them as potential artists," Cobble says.
D'Alessandro, who has taught at the Roanoke County school since 1989, has been active at the local and state levels in arts education. She has worked with organizations such as the state Department of Education, Virginia Watercolor Society and League of Roanoke Artists.
Stephen King, supervisor of fine arts for Roanoke County schools, says D'Alessandro is committed to her students, to art education and to the profession.
"She is constantly seeking new ways and avenues for both her students and her own professional growth," King says.
She has exhibited her paintings and watercolors in dozens of art shows and has judged many shows as well. She has been coordinator of the artwork for Roanoke's recycling calendar. The artworks for the calendar are either created from recycled materials or use recycled materials as subjects, such as a painting of crunched Coke cans.
D'Alessandro tries to instill a passion for art, which she didn't experience until she got to college. She grew up in rural Greene County in central Virginia, where, she says, there was no art program in her high school and little emphasis in the arts.
When she enrolled at Longwood College, "I hadn't thought of a major. I was sitting in the auditorium [during an orientation session], and I thought of art because I liked to draw."
D'Alessandro says that proved to be a good decision. She says the late Barbara Bishop, head of Longwood's art department, became a major influence in her life.
"She set high standards. She expected you to produce beyond the minimum," D'Alessandro says. "As I tell my students, I want them to give 150 percent no matter what they do."
She says educators and society need to set higher standards and expect people to meet them.
"We live in a society where everything keeps getting faster, and we are watering things down," she says. "We keep sending signals that education is not important."
D'Alessandro began her career as a fifth-grade teacher at Waverly Yowell Elementary School in Madison County before landing a job as an art teacher at William Monroe High School in Greene County.
She taught at William Monroe from 1975 to 1987. She also taught at Piedmont Community College in Albemarle County for several years while she was at William Monroe.
D'Alessandro taught a year at Blacksburg and Christiansburg high schools before she came to Cave Spring High.
She says she believes lives are enriched through art and that it should be an integral part of every child's life.
D'Alessandro was a coordinator of a Roanoke County project that recently won the Virginia Art Yearbook Award for a collection of student art from schools throughout the county. She worked with Pat Carr, another Cave Spring art teacher and a former Art Teacher of the Year, in preparing the yearbook.
D'Alessandro says Carr has been an inspiration and has provided professional support at Cave Spring.
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff Cave Spring High School art teacherby CNBSandi D'Alessandro helps 11th-grader Cindy Eggen with a sculpture
based on the work of artist Roy Lichtenstein. D'Alessandro tries
to get her students to break away from the conventional and see the
world with a fresh eye. color