Ask any Westside parent how their kid is doing right now and you get some version of the same answer. Fine, but wired. Can't settle. Melts down over homework at 4:30. Asks for the iPad before the backpack hits the floor.

We've all read the popcorn brain stuff. What almost nobody offers is the opposite thing: a room where a 7-year-old goes quiet, gets absorbed in something with their hands for 45 minutes, and comes out regulated instead of revved up.

That's what ARTWELL is doing, and the part most parents don't realize is that it's already happening inside a public school.

ARTWELL is an approved LAUSD vendor, and it just finished its second year running after-school art classes at Westminster Elementary in Venice.

It runs as a recurring paid session during the afterschool program, and afterschool staff walk kids to and from the room so families don't add a pickup to their afternoon.

The program is run by Rachel Woodbridge, a Venice mom and Parsons-trained creative who spent years as a creative director in fashion and luxury concierge work in New York before moving to LA. She's also a Westminster parent, and she was one of 12 educators honored at the Venice Chamber of Commerce's 2025 WAVE Awards, the We Are Venice Education Awards, at the California Yacht Club in May 2025.

Rachel's version of the origin story is pretty familiar to anyone who parented through 2020. She was home full time with a toddler and started using art to help her kid cope. Her own mom had spent decades as an early childhood educator and ran a Reggio-inspired preschool on the East Coast. Drawing on that influence and knowledge, Rachel volunteered to facilitate weekly art workshops at her child's preschool and watched what it did to the kids.

Her framing, in her own words: "Having personally faced mental health challenges, I want to offer both kids and adults a screen-free, welcoming space to express themselves and find relief through creativity".

She's blunt that this is not an art lesson. From her site: "Unlike traditional instructional classes, these workshops serve as a creativity lab where participants are encouraged to explore various materials and techniques".

She calls herself a facilitator rather than an instructor. She introduces a material or a technique, then gets out of the way. No model project taped to the whiteboard for kids to copy. No right answer to fail at.

The Westminster program ran as a paid 5-week session, open to all ages and skill levels, structured like this:

Here's the structure, per Rachel, and it's worth reading closely if you're on a PTO or booster board. Quick note: Venice Rising's publisher is a Westminster parent and helps with the Friends of Westminster booster club. FOW comes up below, so you should know that going in.

ARTWELL received a fixed fee through an LAUSD arts grant to provide the after-school program. Separately, families paid FOW directly to reserve a seat, and those funds remained with FOW to support arts programming at the school. ARTWELL did not collect, administer, or receive any portion of the family payments, and its compensation was not affected by enrollment or the amount collected.

Because space was limited, enrollment was first-come, first-served. Multiple no-cost spots - representing a substantial portion of each class - were reserved from the outset. The enrollment form offered families the option to request a no-cost place by checking a box; no explanation or proof of financial need was required.

For Rachel, the structure balanced access and sustainability: ARTWELL was compensated fairly, no-cost enrollment was built into the program, and family payments remained with the school’s arts fund. 

That last part matters more than it sounds. Plenty of good enrichment dies after one year because it was underwritten as a favor. A structure where the artist is paid properly and the school keeps the tuition is the version that comes back.

Here's where the nervous system framing stops being a nice-sounding idea.

Kids' stress hormones measurably drop during visual art. Eleanor Brown's lab at West Chester University has been swabbing preschoolers' saliva for cortisol for years. A 2017 study in Child Development followed 310 economically disadvantaged 3 to 5-year-olds in Head Start and found arts classes were linked to lower cortisol. A newer study of 74 Head Start kids narrowed in on visual arts specifically and found children showed both lower cortisol and greater observed interest during visual arts classes than during every other class in their preschool day.

One detail from that study should shape how any school program gets designed. Of the four art setups they tracked, painting table, drawing table, clay table, and teacher art table, only the teacher art table was linked to lower cortisol. An engaged grown-up making art alongside the kids appears to be part of the active ingredient. Materials dumped on a table is not the same intervention as a facilitated session.

Art plus mindfulness moves the needle on anxiety. A 2025 meta-analysis in Behavioral Sciences pooled 17 studies and 1,548 students and found mindfulness-based art interventions significantly reduced student anxiety (g = -0.387). Full facilitated interventions clearly outperformed just handing kids mandala coloring pages.

And the flow piece. This is the one that explains why kids come out of these rooms different. University of Calgary researcher Brittany Harker Martin's 2021 study, titled "Art Making Promotes Mental Health: A Solution for Schools That Time Forgot," ran basic art exercises with 104 school-based mental health professionals and found art-making triggered self-reported flow states that correlated with increased mental health capacity over time. Early brain imaging showed rolling waves rising into gamma spikes and then dropping into low theta, a pattern Martin described as matching flow's feeling of "ecstasy and serenity at the same time".

Her point about schools is the one to bring to a booster meeting. Self-regulation is one of the hardest things to teach a child directly, and art may hand kids a repeatable way to get there on their own.

California voters passed Prop 28 in 2022, which sets aside roughly $1 billion a year specifically to expand visual arts, music, dance, and theater in TK-12 public schools. The 2026-27 allocation is $1.06 billion. LAUSD's share alone is $74.6 million.

The money is real. Spending it has been a mess. Schools have been so confused about the rules that dozens of districts sent their arts money back to the state rather than risk spending it wrong and getting sued. LAUSD is currently being sued by Austin Beutner, the former superintendent who wrote and largely funded Prop 28, over whether the district used the funds to backfill existing salaries instead of adding programs. The district denies it, and the case is pending in LA Superior Court.

There's also a staffing wall. A 2025 SRI study found California needs 5,000+ more arts teachers, and some districts have had arts vacancies open six months or longer.

That gap is exactly where an approved vendor fits. A school that cannot fill a credentialed arts position can still contract a facilitated program. AB 2440, which passed unanimously and was signed by Gov. Newsom on Sept. 27, broadens Prop 28 spending to include curriculum, instructional materials, and professional development, and lets districts pool funds and share resources across sites.

And there's a second lever most parents have never heard of. LAUSD's Partners for Student Success program offers eligible schools matching funds for enrichment services from pre-approved vendor lists, arts included. If your school is paying for enrichment out of booster money, ask whether it can be matched.

ARTWELL lists schools as a core service, described as "enrichments and professional development that help students and educators thrive," along with organizations and curriculum consulting. Contact ARTWELL - Instagram is @artwell.la.

Before you email, figure out who at your school is the “yes”. Usually that's the PTO or booster president plus the principal, and often the after-school coordinator. Then send the letter below.

Swap the bracketed bits.

Subject: Proposal for a facilitated after-school art program at [SCHOOL NAME]

Hi [NAME],

I'm [YOUR NAME], parent of a [GRADE] grader in [TEACHER]'s class. I'd like to propose that we look into bringing a facilitated art and wellness program to [SCHOOL NAME] as an after-school enrichment session, and I want to point to a nearby school that has already run one successfully for two years so we're not starting from scratch.

I want to be specific, because this is not a request for more craft supplies.

The problem I think we all see. Our kids are arriving dysregulated. Screen saturation, testing pressure, and packed schedules have left a lot of them with very few tools to calm their own bodies down, and our teachers are absorbing that all day.

What the research says. There's a real evidence base here, and it points specifically at facilitated visual art rather than just access to materials.

A local program that is already an approved LAUSD vendor. ARTWELL, based in Venice, is a facilitated art and wellness program run by Rachel Woodbridge, a 2025 Venice Chamber of Commerce WAVE Award honoree. ARTWELL has completed two years of after-school programming at Westminster Elementary in Venice. The model is process-based rather than instructional, uses small groups and artist-grade materials, explores a single medium in depth over a multi-week session, sends weekly email recaps to families, and ends with a take-home art kit. Contact: [email protected], https://www.discoverartwell.com

That structure keeps the artist sustainably paid, keeps tuition dollars inside our school's arts fund, and builds in access for families who can't pay, without making it an unpaid favor that disappears after one year.

Possible funding paths worth asking the district about.

What I'm asking for. Could we put this on the agenda for the next [PTO / booster / staff] meeting? I'm happy to request a scope and quote in advance so we have real numbers, and to check with the district about arts grant and matching fund eligibility. I'll also volunteer to help coordinate enrollment, the reserved no-cost spots, and any parent volunteers needed.

Thanks for considering it.

[YOUR NAME]
[PHONE / EMAIL]

Running something like this at your school, or want to? Hit reply!