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Facts & Guidelines

Contract Guidelines | Standards for Approval | Ticket Purchase Guidelines | NYSSMA Criteria | DCMEA Criteria

Contract Guidelines

Contracts are available through the district arts coordinator.

  1. Artists should complete questions #1 on all contracts. Schools should complete questions #2-7 of the contract. Coordinators need to carefully check contracts/W9 to assure everything is filled out and signed accurately.
  2. In filling out the contract, the name or organization name should exactly duplicate the artist’s IRS tax filing, e.g. if the artist files under their name and SS#, fill the contract out this way; if the artist files under an organization name such as “Puppet People, Inc” or using a TIN#, fill the contract out this way. The W9 should be the same.

Sample:
Provider Information: Please enter who the check is being made out to.

  *Artist or Organization___________ Phone __________ Fax ________ 

   Address: ____________________  E-Mail Address ________________

  *Federal ID # (group)_____   or  *Social Security # (individual) ______

The information provided on these lines must exactly match the information provided for 1009 reporting purposes

  1. An original W9 should be sent in at least twice a year (July 1 and January 1). If there have been no changes in title, incorporation, etc. It may be easier to simply send a new one each time if the artist is unsure of this.
  2. Contracts need to be received by Maria DeWald, BOCES AIE Coordinator, at least one month prior to the performance date. No contract can be approved if received after the program has occurred despite any extenuating circumstances. They can be sent as much as a year in advance but no later than April 15. Many schools/districts fill out most of their AIE contracts in the summer.
  3. Coordinators should retain the pink [district] and gold [artist] copies of the contract before sending to BOCES. Once BOCES approves and signs the received contracts, email confirmations will be sent periodically to district coordinators. If the contract is not approved, a letter to that affect will also be sent.
  4. If there is a contract modification before the date of the performance, fill out the Contract Modification form, staple to a copy of the old contract and resubmit.
  5. District Coordinators are to assure that artists have a copy of the Verification/Evaluation Form to facilitate payment after the performance is completed. The easiest way to do this is to send a copy to the artist with the contract. Schools should know how to get additional copies when needed. The form will also be available electronically at the BOCES AIE site.
  6. The school evaluation should also be submitted within 24 hours of the performance.
  7. Payment to the artist normally should take no more than 1 month. However, budget modifications, W-9 forms either missing or not consistent with the contract and artist’s IRS filing, business office payment schedule, no verification/evaluation form, emergency situations, etc. could hold this up. In regard to budget modifications, it is much more effective if the school district pays a sum of money up front to their BOCES account so that billing for each individual contract, which requires extra time, does not hold up the artist payment process.

Standards for Approval:

The following is a list of Dutchess County BOCES Guidelines for program approval developed to assure the integrity of the aforementioned NYSED Program:

Compliance with the following standards is required for BOCES aid approval:

  • Alignment with the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts.
  • Activities and services pertaining to the arts may involve multiple contacts. For example, a residency, which may be one day in length but is usually of longer duration, is not meant to be an assembly program and multiple contacts between artists, students and teachers would be expected in these cases. An artist might provide staff development activities for teachers before or after a performance. Also, activities or special interest workshops might be held for students in addition to a performance. Another example might be a multiple contract between districts for a countywide musical production. These types of arts experiences are highly recommended.
  • Approval may be given for an arts performance on an individual contract basis according to curriculum appropriateness.
  • Programs must include a teacher evaluation as part of the plan.
  • Artists and cultural organizations listed on the Arts-in-Education Website are recommended as a guide and are not meant to be restrictive or inclusive in any way.
  • Some examples of aidable programs are artists-in residence, professional development in the arts including subscription fees for appropriate art and music publications, author visits, theatre and museum tickets and arts-related components to larger events such as Smithsonian Museum admission tickets when on a field trip to Washington.
  • This service may also grant aid for the cost of students’ admission tickets when field trips are taken to attend visual arts exhibitions, and dance, music and dramatic performances. This includes both local and non-local activities/venues such as a Broadway show, Bardavon performance, Hudson Valley Philharmonic, etc.
  • Transportation costs are not eligible for BOCES aid. Neither is any arts-in-education activity occurring on a weekend or in the evening [exception: a weekday evening performance that is part of/connected to an artist-in-residence or workshop project or a connected event that is only available on a weekend]. There are a [very] few exceptions for weekends.
  • All artists employed through the AIE Co-Ser who are presenting an arts program for the first time in a district, will need to be fingerprinted prior to presenting the program if the artist will be spending unsupervised time or have direct contact with children under the age of 21 or will be conducting a residency of five days or more.

Following is a scale recommended by Edward S. Marschilok, associate in music education at the NYSED Office of Curriculum and Instruction in 1998-99, to determine if an arts program has educational value:

**** Highest rating
**** Students demonstrate learning due to motivation/challenge of the workshop, exhibition or performance
***
Enrichment for another core subject that addresses one of the Arts Standards
** Exposure with no personal commitment to an art form or an opportunity to demonstrate learning
* Entertainment that passes time, requires no student effort, and is superficial

For Dutchess County Coordinators, a good rule of thumb is that more than 75% of the content/delivery of the program should be arts related. Students should leave the event feeling it was an arts experience. For example, if the theme of a performance is history but involves a theatre performance, songs of the period, etc. it could be aidable. However, if the theme of a program is basketball or science and involves only one small component, say 10%, that is arts related, it would not be eligible for aid.

It should be a goal of all district arts coordinators to assure that every student, over the course of their school careers, enjoys the benefit of exposure to at least one or more arts residencies. Hopefully, exposure to an arts workshop or event for every student each year is also not unreasonable and highly desirable.

Ticket Purchase Guidelines for Artistic/Cultural Events and Field Trips

The New York State Education Department allows aid on tickets to events which school districts purchase for their students, teachers and chaperones if those tickets are contracted through BOCES. Admission fees [not other related costs such as transportation, lunch, etc.] to concerts, theatre, ballet, dance and museums are eligible for this aid. Events must support the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts.

When a request for tickets or admissions is received by BOCES, the district will be billed for the total amount unless the vendor has agreed to defer payment until after the event.

PURCHASING TICKETS:

  1. A teacher, principal, superintendent, or arts coordinator makes all arrangements for dates, times, and number of tickets, directly with the vendor/organization (theatre, museum, etc.). Ask box office to fax an invoice to you listing BOCES as the agent responsible for payment. Obtain from box office its Federal ID number, which must be included on the contract. Again, this program funds only admission costs and not transportation or other related costs. The school representative needs to arrange with the vendor to have the tickets reserved at their location, picked up, or sent directly to the school for an additional fee. This fee can be included in the request to BOCES.
  2. Complete the contract as always and send with the invoice from the box office to BOCES. Remember that many vendors will not hold tickets for long periods of time so efficient paperwork/communication need to occur. If advance payment is needed, please write this clearly on the contract and leave adequate time for payment to be received by the vendor from BOCES.
  3. Ideally the vendor agrees to defer payment until after the event. In this case, please assure that the vendor has a copy of the signed verification form to send in after the event to facilitate payment. Arrangements should be confirmed in writing with signatures of both parties and attached to the usual contract. The evaluation forms with final statistics attached should be sent to BOCES immediately after the event. Some vendors, such as The Bardavon, have their own verification form which is printed on the reverse of ours and which they fill out and return just as an artist would.

Please note:

  • Dutchess County BOCES cannot reimburse individuals, organizations or schools for tickets, which have already been purchased. To guarantee state aid reimbursement, DC BOCES must pay the box office directly for tickets.
  • Please do not ask for partial payment, i.e. some funds coming from the PTA, some from BOCES, as this causes major confusion at the box office. Some schools handle this by arranging for an arts-in-education line in the school budget that donated funds can be granted to for a payment when billed.

New York State School Music Association [NYSSMA] CoSer Aid Criteria & Forms:

Dutchess County Music Educators Association [DCMEA] CoSer Aid Criteria & Forms:

For more information:

Maria DeWald
Coordinator
Arts in Education
Dutchess BOCES BETA
900 Dutchess Turnpike
Poughkeepsie, New York 12603
v: 845.486.4840 x3078
f: 845.486.4832
maria.dewald@dcboces.org