Baltimore's Own Anthem Project

Baltimore City Public Schools is a large, under-resourced urban district with significant inequities in arts access. Some schools had thriving fine arts programs. In other parts of the city, there was barely a full-time art teacher on the clock. The pandemic made it worse, forcing a complete reimagination of how arts education gets delivered.

Howard knew something most curriculum coordinators don't lead with. Students who were creating altercations in hallways often weren't doing the same in their arts classes. The arts weren't enrichment. They were the part of the school day where something different happened.

The growth started with a piece of serendipity. Music educator Rod Hamilton emailed Howard asking about Soundtrap seconds after she had been researching it herself. Hamilton had already had success with the platform and was asking to purchase more seats. Howard granted the request on one condition: Hamilton would help write the curriculum. That's how 500 seats became 6,000.

Howard integrated Soundtrap across music, theater, dance, and technical theater. Soundtrap started in high school. Howard pushed it into middle school. Then into elementary. Cross-content applications followed, including core classes. English learners used it. The platform became the through-line of the district's arts program.

The Fine Arts Summer Camp proved the model. Using ESSER funds earmarked for learning loss, Howard built a six-week immersive program. 100+ K-8 students chose to spend 7 hours a day on fine arts across 11 different classes, organized as three-week rotations. Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Teachers across the district started requesting more seats because students were asking to keep using it after class.

The growth from 500 to 6,000 seats didn't come from top-down mandates. It came from students and teachers pulling the program forward.

Howard used a student's Soundtrap track as the background music for one of her board presentations, then introduced the composer to the board: an English learner whose other coursework had never surfaced that capability. Students who wanted careers in rap, dance, and production had a tool to start building portfolio work in school.

Howard calls it an anthem. When students find music that feels like theirs, something shifts. They stop showing up to cause problems and start showing up to create.