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ARTS IMPACT 

Description

Arts Impact, a program of Puget Sound Educational Service District, provides comprehensive arts professional development for classroom teachers, training preschool through middle school teachers to incorporate art into their students' basic education.

Arts Impact programs emphasize hands-on learning and one-on-one artist/teacher mentorships in dance, theater and visual arts. Training focuses on developing teacher knowledge, skills and practice to infuse standards-based arts into core curriculum. Arts Impact brings high quality arts education experiences to students by training classroom teachers to use the arts in their day-to-day teaching.

Mission Statement
Arts Impact provides professional learning for teachers to build confidence and competence to integrate the arts into the everyday classroom experience, helping to ensure all children have access to quality arts education.

Arts Impact is committed to building key 21st century skills for both teachers and students that include creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, all vital to closing the opportunity gap.

Arts Impact believes including the arts in basic education teaches to the whole child, engages all learning modalities, and leads to the development of powerful learning habits. 

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ARTS IMPACT
Puget Sound Educational Service District 
Renton 
WA
98057-5221 
(425) 971-7943 

Sibyl Barnum 
Director of Arts Education 

Programs

ARTS IMPACT Programs

Through partnerships with schools and local arts organizations, Arts Impact empowers classroom teachers to become competent and confident leaders of visual and performing arts. By developing teacher independence, Arts Impact exponentially increases the numbers of students who receive arts-infused instruction throughout a teacher’s career. Arts infusion offers a different educational approach and viewpoint to students who may have difficulty learning in traditional ways. It provides methods for teachers to teach the arts while satisfying pressures to cover academic areas on high stakes tests. Our programs strive to fill the void where arts education is missing in so many schools today.          

Core Model             
The Core Arts Impact model trains K-5 whole schools, whole districts, or teacher teams in a 2-year, 90-hour professional development program. Each year of training includes a 30-hour Summer Institute; 10 hour one-on-one mentorships with an Artist Mentor; a class study trip to a partnering organization’s exhibition or performance; supplementary workshops; and learning community work sessions. Core is the foundational model on which all other Arts Impact programs are based.         

Early Learning             
The Early Learning program is a partnership between two Puget Sound Educational Service District programs: Arts Impact and Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, investigating an Arts Impact model for early learning professional development and arts lessons. Pilot sites were selected in the Enumclaw School District to connect with the Arts Impact Core program already in place at district elementary schools. The project has received continued funding support to implement the model at the Multicultural Child and Family Hope Center in Tacoma.          

Arts Impact Dissemination and Expansion (AIDE)
AIDE is a 4-year partnership with Seattle Public Schools and Northeast Washington Educational Service District 101, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. By recreating Arts Impact’s innovative Core professional development training model in key rural, urban, and mid-size school districts in three diverse geographic areas around Washington, Arts Impact expects to make further program replication possible, both statewide and nationally.

Recent Successes and Current Challenges

Arts Impact is proud to have fostered significant program growth, currently operating six different professional development models. Since 2002, Arts Impact has received six separate U.S. Department of Education Arts in Education grants--the most of any arts education program in the country. The most recent Department of Education grant, in 2011, supports a three year scale-up of the successful Teacher Training: Arts as Literacy program in the Seattle School District.

Financial support for Arts Impact’s Core model is critical. Outside funding is essential in order for us to provide training to all of the teachers and schools who request it.

Evaluation


Arts Impact is a professional development program for K-5 educators in school districts across King and Pierce Counties. Because training the classroom teacher is the most efficient and practical way to ensure that all students receive a high-quality arts education, change in teaching practice is the AI’s ultimate goal. The organization is nationally known for its systemic, research-based approach to integrating the arts into the core public school curriculum.

Use of Best Practices
Strong partnerships with local artists and arts organizations form the cornerstone of the program’s success, as does AI’s emphasis on the “whole-school” (working with the entire teaching staff) approach. Arts Impact programs are aligned with specific state standards in arts education, making it easier for teachers to integrate AI approaches into their existing course-plans.

Accessibility and Cultural Competence
Because family engagement is critical to student success, AI connects families and schools through arts nights, family outreach, and school exhibits of student artwork with multi-language explanations of the art.

Sustainability
Although Washington State’s financial support of arts education is low relative to other states, Arts Impact has successfully balanced its budget every year by consistently attracting large federal grants, contributions from participating schools (which have increased despite tight school budgets), and local corporate and foundation funding.

Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:

Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:

DateAmountPurpose
9/10/2012 $12,500.00support general operating expenses of Arts Impact.
9/10/2009 $15,000.00support general operating expenses of Arts Impact program.
6/26/2008 $50,000.00support construction of the Greenbridge Early Learning Center in White Center.
10/18/2007 $15,000.00support general operating expenses of the Arts Impact program.

Financials

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