Simonds Elementary School teacher Phyllis Politoski says her interests lie more in the visual arts, but she may enroll in a performance workshop or two.

"Dance intrigues me," Politoski adds. "It's not my forte, but maybe it's what I should be doing."

The March 11 conference, sponsored by the Santa Clara County Office of Education, Montalvo Arts Center and Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, will feature introductory and advanced workshops in arts instructional methods, as well as demonstrations of standards-based, teacher-friendly, developmentally appropriate art lessons by master teachers.

The conference was born out of new state standards for arts education, which led the COE to develop a visual and performing arts resource guide.

"Cultural Initiatives, Montalvo and the county office of education got together and said, 'We need to do something with the resource guide,' and we came up with this event," says Ellen Welt, the COE's director of instructional services.

Politoski is one of three teachers from Simonds attending the conference. A first-grade teacher, Politoski also has three children enrolled at Simonds, including fifth-grader Jenny, who plays in the school band. Politoski says an arts education is important to her both as a teacher and a parent.

"The teacher side of me knows what it can do for brain development," she adds.

As a parent, she sees how incorporating the arts into her son Danny's kindergarten curriculum helps him overcome his visual impairment.

"For everyone who learns in a different way, the arts can help," Politoski says. "When kids can learn through art, it's a lot less stressful for them."

Politoski appreciates the fact that conference attendees are subsidized by the event's organizers via a grant from Applied Materials.

"Very rarely do you get classes and workshops that are free," she says.

Betty Chen, whose class combines third and fourth graders at Graystone Elementary School, is attending the conference as part of a year-long professional development program sponsored by Cultural Initiatives, the COE and the Bay Area California Arts Project.

"At this school, we have a great enrichment program," Chen says. "But I'd like to involve visual and performing arts more in my classroom. I know there's a need, and I know students don't get enough of it.

"I have a love for the arts," says Chen, who majored in art history in college. "Because of that, I know how important it is to have the arts in our lives. I want to provide that for the students in my classroom if I can do it in a way that they're still academically challenged. If I'm doing a language arts lesson, I can incorporate theater as well so they're getting both subjects."

Politoski already uses some performing arts in her classroom at Simonds. Her students sing tunes that help them learn to count and identify parts of speech. Still, she wants to be sure that her methods measure up to state standards, something she hopes to verify at the conference.

"It's easy to say in first grade that I integrate art into my curriculum," Politoski says. "It's harder to say that you're teaching what you need to about art."