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Elizabeth Hornek By Beth Secor (from The How To's of Art Cars) Elizabeth Hornek has taught art at the High School for Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement (HSCJLE) in Houston, Texas, for nine years. As Ms. Hornek relates, many of her students are from rough neighborhoods and although many try to leave the influence of their home environments at the door, it doesn't always happen that way. Additionally, the conservative nature of a law enforcement school doesn't exactly foster participation in art classes. In January of 1995, Hector Garma, Education Director at the Downtown YMCA, approached The Orange Show Foundation about a collaborative art car project that would involve three area schools: an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. The High School was HSCJLE. For the next eight weeks students worked on panels for the vehicle using tiny beads, marbles, and paint. For her school's part of the project, Elizabeth Hornek purposely chose the students most at-risk, those most likely to drop out, those least interested in an academic education. "I wanted them to see this as a challenge. I wanted to find a way to get these kids to stick to a project and carry it all the way through to the end. I knew they could do it, but I wanted them to prove it to me, as well as to themselves." The gamble paid off. Ms. Hornek says of the experience, "I can definitely see where the project made a difference. It was really a good outlet for these kids. A lot of these kids never ever considered doing anything creative, and now they're starting to think in terms of being artists. I am seeing kids who I never thought would make it through their freshman year still going strong two years later." Since the completion of the project, the students have completed two other vans on their own. Ms. Hornek has reported that her art classes are filling to capacity, and she's actually having to turn students away. "My two advanced art classes each have fifty kids in them. This has never happened before. I have kids telling me they can only take art for nine weeks because they have to make up another class, and they want to take art in that specific session when we create the art car for this year's parade." | 
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