Students at Port Allegany Elementary School have enjoyed several after school programs thanks to local professional photographer and paraprofessional at PAES  Elizabeth Valentine.  Mrs. Valentine wanted to start some creative driven based afterschool programs for elementary students at PAES.  She has a passion for the performing and visual arts and wanted to share her knowledge and show students how to look outside the box and get creative with the world around them.  She also wanted to encourage them to explore creativity through photography.   Her lessons included hands-on experience with lighting, perspective and color, posing, camera angles, set design and commercial and product photography.  Students in 4th, 5th and 6th grades learned their lesson for the week and then went out into the school building and outdoors to experiment with photography.  The classes included themes and scavenger hunts as well as photo challenges to make the lessons fun. 

Each grade had 12-week sessions with Mrs. Valentine for photography.  When the photography sessions ended, the after-school sessions focused on the performing arts(acting).  Mrs. Valentine introduced her students to comedy improv, how to explore and channel emotions,  to think about life experiences and how to get into a character.  Mrs Valentine believes these skills greatly help students gather courage to be in front of people, respect their peers as they perform, think about different life experiences and how to channel them into a positive, healthy outlet on the spot.  Also, the acting lessons build self-confidence and emotional awareness and reduce stress as well as giving the students a creative outlet to express themselves, The classes help students to understand how different emotions affect their body language and social and emotional well being through performances.  Students were also taught how to apply special effects makeup and as importantly, how to properly remove makeup. 

Mrs. Valentine hopes to expand her afterschool programs possibly starting school neswspapers at PAES and PAHS.  The current programs have been well received by students, staff and parents who appreciate Mrs. Vaentine’s time and talents.    The students had some of their photography featured in the 2023 Elementary Art Show.