How Sun Prairie Schools Increased Student Engagement by 34% with Recording Arts

April 10, 2026

What if 17% of your students said they wouldn’t come to school at all without a specific program? That’s exactly what Sun Prairie Area School District discovered when they surveyed students about their recording arts studios. The numbers were staggering: 34% of students reported that access to recording studios significantly impacted their school attendance.

For districts grappling with chronic absenteeism rates that have skyrocketed post-pandemic, these results represent more than just an engaging program. They’re proof that the right approach to student engagement can transform school culture entirely.

Curt, Director of Digital Media Innovation and Strategy at Sun Prairie Area School District in Wisconsin, knew they needed something different. “Our kids want to be more deeply engaged in the work of learning,” he explains. “They want to be known by their teachers and have opportunities to interact and engage more deeply with their peers.” What they found was that recording arts education didn’t just meet this need. It exceeded every expectation.

The Challenge: When One Size Fits All Stops Fitting Anyone

Sun Prairie’s journey began with a recognition many districts share today. Once a rural agricultural community, Sun Prairie had evolved into a rapidly growing suburban district near Wisconsin’s capital. With this growth came demographic diversification that challenged their traditional educational approaches.

“We know that [the one size fits all approach] was working for some kids, but it wasn’t working for all kids,” Curt reflects. Through extensive community engagement, interviewing hundreds and hundreds of students, the district learned something crucial: their students were curious, insightful, and ready to learn, but they needed authentic, purposeful work that honored their voices and perspectives.

The challenge was particularly acute for students who felt disconnected from traditional classroom structures. Marcus Porter, the district’s Studio Facilitator, observed that “most of the students that were coming were of color. They looked like me and they just needed a space, right? They needed a space to be safe and feel like they can have a creative outlet.”

This isn’t unique to Sun Prairie. Chronic absenteeism has become a nationwide crisis, with many districts struggling to re-engage students in meaningful learning experiences that feel relevant to their lives and futures.

The Approach: Recording Arts as Cross-Curricular Strategy

Sun Prairie’s solution came through a partnership with 4 Learning, a school transformation organization focused on driving school change through the recording arts. As the sister organization to the High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, 4 Learning draws on over 25 years of experience developing recording arts as a comprehensive educational methodology for districts nationwide.

The district implemented a systematic approach across their three high schools (East, West, and Prairie Phoenix) with professional recording studios and mobile podcast carts serving additional schools throughout the district.

Here’s how recording arts education works in Sun Prairie classrooms:

The Cross-Subject Workflow:

1. Teacher assigns subject-specific content (math equations, historical events, scientific concepts, safety protocols)
2. Students research and gather information using traditional academic sources
3. Content creation phase where students write educational raps, songs, or podcast scripts incorporating subject matter
4. Studio recording sessions with professional guidance from Marcus Porter
5. Production and editing using Soundtrap’s cloud-based platform
6. Integration with classroom systems through seamless Google Classroom submission
7. Community sharing where outstanding projects are showcased school-wide

“It was easy to use Soundtrap and transfer it right over to Google Classroom. The teacher didn’t have to do much with that,” explains Karen Walters, Library Media Specialist at West High School.

The key breakthrough was realizing that recording arts isn’t just for music class. It’s a methodology for authentic expression across all subjects. Students have created everything from foods safety raps to mathematical equation songs to historical podcasts.

The Results: Measurable Impact on Attendance and Achievement

The transformation was immediate and quantifiable. When 4 Learning surveyed students about the recording studios’ impact on their school attendance, the results revealed something remarkable:

By the Numbers:

• 56% said “without the studio, I would still come to school, but it wouldn’t be as exciting”
• 17% said “without the studio, I would come to school much less”
• 17% said “without the studio, I would not come to school at all”
• Only 11% reported no attendance impact from studio access

But beyond attendance, the qualitative changes were equally striking. “When I think about their raps, and it’s now moved into podcasting that’s become really big at our school… these students, their bravery, their creativity, like amazes me,” Karen observes.

Students who had never spoken in class became vocal leaders during recording sessions. The natural revision process was transformative: students voluntarily re-recorded takes 5-10 times to “get it right,” developing persistence and quality standards without external pressure.

Antonio Blake, a Sun Prairie student, captured the personal impact perfectly: “My past experience without Soundtrap, without all the programs… I wouldn’t have come to school as often or been engaged as much as I have been in school, as I am now.”

Perhaps most tellingly, students began staying after school voluntarily to use the recording equipment, and parents started asking teachers how to use Soundtrap at home because they wanted to hear more of their children’s work.

Beyond the Classroom: District-Wide Cultural Transformation

The success didn’t stay contained to individual classrooms. What began as recording studios in three high schools has expanded throughout Sun Prairie’s 15+ schools, with Marcus Porter working across the entire district to bring recording arts to elementary and middle school students.

The approach has proven particularly effective for project-based learning across subjects. Math teachers who initially questioned how recording arts could work in their classrooms discovered students creating educational content that demonstrated mathematical understanding in ways traditional assessments never captured.

“Students who were so reluctant, they turn into it. They’re coming on,” Karen notes, describing the transformation she’s witnessed in students who initially hesitated to try audio creation.

The district has also developed mobile podcast carts that travel between schools, making recording arts accessible even in buildings without dedicated studio space. This scalable approach demonstrates how districts with varying budgets can implement recording arts curriculum.

Preparing Students for an AI-Transformed Future

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape educational assessment and workforce demands, Sun Prairie’s recording arts approach offers something particularly valuable: authenticity that can’t be faked.

“You can’t fake the funk,” explains Michael Lipset, Executive Director of 4 Learning. “It’s your voice on a track. It’s your fingers on the keys… that ability to develop your own style, develop your own taste and flavor is part of realizing who you are as a human being.”

This authentic voice development addresses one of education’s most pressing challenges in the AI era. While students might use AI tools to generate written work, audio creation requires genuine thinking, personal expression, and creative problem-solving: exactly the durable skills Harvard’s Project Zero identifies as “Studio Habits of Mind.”

Karen emphasizes this point: “Your voice is always gonna be more important than any AI tool is going to be. Teachers don’t want to hear what AI has told you to write. Teachers wanna hear what you have to write.”

What Educators Can Learn

Sun Prairie’s four-year journey demonstrates that student engagement isn’t just about making learning “fun.” It’s about creating opportunities for authentic expression that honor student voice and connect to rigorous academic content.

By implementing recording arts as a cross-curricular methodology, they’ve addressed four critical district challenges simultaneously: chronic absenteeism through increased engagement, literacy development through natural revision processes, future-ready skill development through creative collaboration, and assessment integrity through authentic voice expression. This approach aligns with research from America Succeeds showing that recording arts education develops essential durable skills including creative problem-solving, technical literacy, and persistence through authentic work.

The lesson for other districts is clear: when you give students tools for authentic expression and connect that expression to meaningful academic content, engagement follows naturally. As Curt puts it, recording arts is about “taking education out of its box and challenging it by letting student voice and choice be heard.”

Ready to bring authentic voice to your classroom? Try Soundtrap for Education free and see how audio creation transforms student engagement and learning outcomes. Discover why Sun Prairie’s students say they wouldn’t come to school without it.

Interested in bringing recording arts programming to your school or district? Contact 4 Learning at contact@4learning.com to learn how their school transformation model can work for your community.

Related Reading:

• From Cereal Commercials to Career Readiness: How One Teacher Discovered the Power of Student Voice
• From Music Appreciation to National Podcasts: How Dr. Tom Tacke Turned Chromebooks into a Professional Audio Production Lab
• From Silence to Spotlight: Research Reveals How Audio Creation Transforms K-12 Learning