Cheryl Shimek, president of the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation Board of Directors, said that with the passage of Prop. 28, the board recognized there would be an opportunity to hire more teachers. So, it decided to establish a new scholarship that would support aspiring art teachers.
“We chose to name it the Judy Vadasz Scholarship in recognition of Judy’s contributions to the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation as co-founder, board member and patron since 2002,” Shimek said.
Vadasz now serves as the director emeritus of Sonoma Plein Air Foundation in an advisory role.
The scholarship is intended to support art education certification for a credentialed elementary school teacher in Sonoma Valley Unified School District. Information about the scholarship can be found on the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation website and is shared with the district’s elementary school principals so they can notify their staff about it.
Application requirements include an intention to pursue a certificate to teach art in a Sonoma Valley Unified District elementary school, a recommendation from the school principal and proof of acceptance into an art education certificate program.
“The foundation’s mission for the past 22 years has been to fund arts education for the children and youth of Sonoma Valley,” Shimek said. “The addition of this scholarship to our funding portfolio is a direct response to the increasing need for elementary teachers certified to teach art classes and the decreasing financial support available to interested individuals.”
Morgan Momsen, a fifth grade teacher at El Verano Elementary School, has been awarded a scholarship by Sonoma Plein Air Foundation to pursue a certification in art education.
She received the Judy Vadasz Scholarship, a new award that will be given annually to an elementary school teacher in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District who wants to become certified to teach art to kindergarten through fifth grade students.
“We awarded Morgan the scholarship because she fulfilled our criteria and exemplified the type of individual we want to support,” said Cheryl Shimek, president of the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation Board of Directors. “Her strong connections to Sonoma Valley were apparent as she is a graduate of Sonoma Valley High School who was also the 2013 recipient of the Lewis E. Cook Student Scholarship and a current teacher at El Verano Elementary School.
“Morgan’s undergraduate education in art and design and her previous credentialing for other subjects, along with her passion for the arts and her love of teaching combined to make her our perfect choice for this year’s scholarship.”
Motivated to teach arts to students, Momsen took an online class through Phoenix University to enable her to do so. The scholarship helps her to pay for the class, which she needed to take to apply for a single-subject art credential to teach arts in grades K-12.
“I love the arts and I am a skilled teacher,” Momsen said. “I hope to bridge the two. When I found out that I received the scholarship, I was excited and nervous, because that meant I had to actually get this dream going.”
Born and raised in Sonoma, Momsen attended St. Francis Solano School in Sonoma and Sonoma Valley High School. She received a bachelor’s degree in art and design, with a concentration in photography, from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, in 2017, and a multiple subject teaching credential from Sonoma State University.
She then began student-teaching kindergartners and second graders at El Verano, leading to her job as a full-time fifth grade teacher there.
“It’s an incredibly special community, and I love being there,” Momsen said. “What I enjoy most about teaching is spending the day with students, watching them become themselves, hearing all their creative ideas and seeing their curiosity expand.”
She emphasized the importance of teaching the arts at the school, which she said can benefit students on many levels.
“Unfortunately, this is not recognized, and the arts are not currently valued,” “Momsen said. “I hope to help bring a change to that at El Verano.”
Shimek lauded the benefits of arts education.
“It supports the development of social-emotional and interpersonal skills while enriching experiences, improving focus and supporting academic achievement,” she said. “Overall, integrating arts into elementary education enhances students’ overall success, enriching their experiences and providing essential skills for life.
“The arts also help our students with expression, self-discovery, self-esteem and stress relief. The arts help build thinking problem-solving skills and engagement in learning. They enhance lives and the community itself, binding us together, feeding our curiosity and growing joy.”
Momsen added that visual art classes help students boost many cognitive skills and social functions, such as focus, self-control, retention and empathy.
“The arts also strengthen critical thinking, language use and acquisition, perseverance, engagement and creativity,” she said. “I could fill the whole newspaper with benefits of arts education!”
She said that elementary schools should provide the foundation for arts education.
“If we want to support the ‘whole child,’ we need to start in elementary,” she said.
Momsen said important arts classes in middle and high school are being cut because elementary school students don’t have a foundation in these skills and therefore aren’t enrolling in them.
“Students are naturally creative when they are young, but there’s a major drop off when they get older,” she said. “Instead of allowing these skills to fall to the wayside, we need to encourage them and strengthen them.”
Reach the reporter, Dan Johnson, at daniel.johnson@sonomanews.com.
Cheryl Shimek, president of the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation Board of Directors, said that with the passage of Prop. 28, the board recognized there would be an opportunity to hire more teachers. So, it decided to establish a new scholarship that would support aspiring art teachers.
“We chose to name it the Judy Vadasz Scholarship in recognition of Judy’s contributions to the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation as co-founder, board member and patron since 2002,” Shimek said.
Vadasz now serves as the director emeritus of Sonoma Plein Air Foundation in an advisory role.
The scholarship is intended to support art education certification for a credentialed elementary school teacher in Sonoma Valley Unified School District. Information about the scholarship can be found on the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation website and is shared with the district’s elementary school principals so they can notify their staff about it.
Application requirements include an intention to pursue a certificate to teach art in a Sonoma Valley Unified District elementary school, a recommendation from the school principal and proof of acceptance into an art education certificate program.
“The foundation’s mission for the past 22 years has been to fund arts education for the children and youth of Sonoma Valley,” Shimek said. “The addition of this scholarship to our funding portfolio is a direct response to the increasing need for elementary teachers certified to teach art classes and the decreasing financial support available to interested individuals.”
