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Dear Brown Skin Boy, Dear Brown Skin Girl
Middle school students had the opportunity to work with spoken word poet and teaching artist Femi the Drifish at this year’s Summer Arts for Learning at Goodnow. During the six-week-long program at the recently re-opened community center managed by Arts for Learning, the class imagined and discussed how children with brown skin experience the world. The girls in the class composed poems saying, “Dear brown skin boy,” and the boys, “Dear brown skin girl.” The class read their poems aloud for parents, staff, and the entire Goodnow community at the program’s culminating performance.
What the audience experienced was honest, powerful, and emotional. Some of the students’ words celebrate beauty, while others express deep pain, and all beautifully and poignantly illustrate the perspectives, fears, and dreams of some of the most valuable members of our community–our children. Let their voices and messages be heard.
Dear brown skin boy,
I’m confused and afraid.
I wonder what path I would take.
I hear that there’s only two ways out.
I see mothers burying their sons.
I want my mom to never feel that pain.
I’m confused and afraid.
I pretend all is fine.
I feel like I’m suffocating.
I touch nothing.
So I believe all is fine.
I worry that it isn’t.
I cry no more.
I’m confused and afraid.
I understand people believe
I am just a statistic.
I say to them I’m different.
I dream of life getting easier.
I try my best to make my dream come true.
I hope that it does.
I’m confused and afraid.
Dear brown skin boy.
Arts for Learning at Goodnow brings meaningful and joyful experiences to the community year-round. Our free, in-person, arts-integrated afterschool program for K-8th grade students is currently open for enrollment. Learn more about the program and how to register for Arts for Learning at Goodnow Afterschool at artsforlearningmd.org/goodnow.
Thomas M. Brown Elected to Arts for Learning Maryland Board of Directors
Thomas M. Brown has been elected to the Board of Directors of Arts for Learning Maryland, the nonprofit delivering arts-integrated learning experiences through engaging teaching artist workshops and performances. Mr. Brown is a partner at Finance Forward, a strategic wealth management firm. He specializes in estate, financial, and charitable planning; insurance; and medical underwriting. In addition to his leadership role at Arts for Learning, Mr. Brown is emeritus trustee of the Institute of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies and a member of the development committee at the Walters Art Museum.
Arts for Learning Maryland reaches thousands of students in every Maryland county. By connecting students and educators with teaching artists, Arts for Learning Maryland transforms learning and encourages exploration, expression, and creativity through compelling and engaging arts-integrated educational experiences in and out of the classroom.
Arts for Learning Teaching Artists Engage Educators at UMBC Arts Integration Conference
Earlier this month, two teaching artists went back to school—but they weren’t guiding students through their creative, arts-integrated approach; this time, they were guiding educators!
On October 1, the UMBC Arts Integration Conference brought together teachers, principals, district leaders, and organizations to explore new ideas and best practices for using arts integration to enhance student learning and classroom instruction. Featuring a range of workshops, presentations, and collaborative discussions, the conference was an inspiring look at what arts integration can be for students.
Arts for Learning teaching artists Quynn Johnson and Katherine Lyons delivered workshops that inspired and educated participants!
In Quynn Johnson’s workshop, Once Upon a Rhythm, the dancer and choreographer guided attendees on how tap dance and its elements—like beat, improvisation, and choreography—can be used to strengthen literacy and math skills for young learners. The workshop featured demonstrations, discussions, and suggestions for delivering tap dance arts integration in the classroom! Learn more about Quynn and her programs here.
In Math Detectives – Where’s the Math? Using Drama to Discover the Math Hidden in Books, storyteller and theater artist Katherine Lyons helped attendees look at books in a different way to uncover instructional math concepts embedded in stories that students read and love. Attendees explored fun, arts-based classroom experiences that support the curriculum such as numbers and number sense, geometry, algebra, measurement, and more! Learn more about Katherine’s programs here.
These compelling workshops and other impactful arts-integrated programs are available to educators across Maryland! Click here to explore all of the Progressional Development workshops our artists offer.
New Chief of People, Equity, and Culture Joins Arts for Learning Maryland
Arts for Learning Maryland, the Baltimore-based nonprofit that transforms student learning in Maryland through arts integration, announced the hiring of DJ Brooks as its new Chief of People, Equity, and Culture — a new position for the 72-year-old organization.
As Chief of People, Equity, and Culture, Brooks will lead the organization’s work around diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as the strategic development and implementation of Arts for Learning’s talent management, recruitment, retention, onboarding and offboarding.
Brooks is a highly trained leader with 10 years of experience in public education and nonprofit sectors. He brings strong expertise in business operations, organizational development, talent management, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
He was most recently the Director of Strategy and Logistics at Cardozo Education Campus for the DC Public School System.
Arts for Learning Maryland reaches thousands of students in every Maryland county with engaging, arts-integrated learning experiences, connecting students and educators with teaching artists. The unique approach transforms learning and encourages exploration, expression, and engagement in traditional academic content as well as creative fields.
“At Arts for Learning we are on a mission to intentionally create office and classroom learning environments of belonging. Where every person in and served by this organization, especially Black, brown, indigenous people and people of color, feel loved, valued, affirmed, and included,” said Stacie Sanders Evans, President and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland. “To ensure greater accountability, and to create a deeper and more sustainable capacity for our equity work, we created a senior level position, Chief of People, Equity, and Culture. We’re thrilled to welcome DJ to the team.”
About Arts for Learning Maryland
Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) is a nonprofit organization devoted to enriching the lives and education of Maryland’s youth through educational and culturally diverse arts programs. Through Arts for Learning, professional teaching artists from all disciplines partner with educators, schools, and school districts to provide, on average, over 300,000 hours of learning in, through, and about the arts to more than 185,000 Maryland students annually.
Summer with Arts for Learning Maryland – A Recap
Another A4L amazing summer is in the books… and on easels, and on stage, and in lyrics…!
Over the last three months, 2,265 students engaged in Arts for Learning Maryland summer programs. They got creative, explored new art forms, enhanced their learning of traditional subjects through the arts, and prepared for their future academic and personal successes!
Students used music and rhythm to practice counting, theatre to better understand the stories they were reading, photography to capture the science around them, and much, much (much!) more!
Speaking of counting, summer with Arts for Learning Maryland by-the-numbers included:
2,265 students in PreK through 11th grade
103 teaching artists who used their amazing talents to inspire students, introducing them to music, theater, dance, writing, storytelling, painting, illustration, spoken word poetry, photography, sculpture, and embroidery
307 educators and supporting staff who integrated the arts into their teaching to create dynamic, interactive learning experiences
30,000+ pieces of art created by students
These numbers exceed last summer, with more students, more impact, and more creative arts-integrated learning! Here’s how it all happened:
Summer Arts for Learning Academy: In this free six-week program, thousands of PreK through 6th-grade students at nine sites across Baltimore City worked with educators and teaching artists to build literacy and math skills through the arts while diving deep into art forms of their choosing. This was the largest iteration of SALA in its eight-year history! Find photos from this summer here.
Summer Arts for Learning at Goodnow: Dozens of students loved this free program at Arts for Learning at Goodnow, the newly reopened community center managed by Arts for Learning in East Baltimore’s Frankford neighborhood. Students worked with artists to dance, write poetry, learn to DJ, and even practice yoga and mindfulness. Find photos here.
Bloomberg Arts Internship Program: 40 rising City Schools seniors – the most interns in the history of the Baltimore program – gained meaningful work experience through paid internships at 18 local arts institutions, supplemented by mentorship and guidance on writing, college applications, and career readiness. Check out a photo gallery from the program, here.
Northeast Baltimore Community Center to Reopen as Arts for Learning at Goodnow
Community hub will offer programs in Arts for Learning’s first community-based location
BALTIMORE – For 27 years, the Goodnow Community Center has been the heart of Northeast Baltimore’s Frankford neighborhood, a popular gathering place for community events, youth programs, and adult recreation leagues. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the Center suspended operations.
But in July, the Center, at 5311 Goodnow Road, will be reborn as Arts for Learning at Goodnow, a hub of joyful, enriching, and creative experiences for area students and the entire community.
The Baltimore-based nonprofit Arts for Learning Maryland’s first step when assuming management of the center will be to bring free summer programming back to the community this July. Arts for Learning’s signature approach is artist-led creative experiences and year-round educational programming that integrate the arts to make the learning more engaging for Maryland students. Arts for Learning at Goodnow will also offer free arts-based afterschool programs during the school year to children in the neighborhood and who attend the neighborhood schools of Furley Elementary, Moravia Park Elementary, Sinclair Lane Elementary, Vanguard Collegiate Middle, and City Neighbors Charter School as well as partner with the community to produce other events.
The building owner, The Morton and Sophia Macht Foundation, Inc., enlisted Arts for Learning Maryland to operate the Center due to its familiarity with the nonprofit’s experience delivering engaging, transformational arts and educational programming.
Said Amy Macht from the Foundation, “Arts for Learning’s growth into the provision of full-day summer learning with its integrated arts curriculum, and its after-school programs has been phenomenal and inspiring. The Center wishes to bring that programming to youth in the community.”
Assuming the role of managing partner organization is a significant milestone for Arts for Learning, whose work, over the past seventy-two years, has primarily taken place in schools. The Center is the nonprofit’s first community-based site. Until now, Arts for Learning reached 180,000 Maryland students a year by bringing artists into schools and classrooms to creatively enhance learning.
“We know the arts have the power to transform lives and transform learning,” said Stacie Sanders Evans, President and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland. “We are excited to expand our reach beyond the classroom and into neighborhoods. At Arts for Learning at Goodnow, we can show how the arts are universal and connect everything in life, be it academics, athletics, or gardening. With this new location, we’ll lift up how artists and art can create and foster community.”
Evans also sees this as a hub for innovation and a place to elevate what happens when work is rooted in cultural inclusion and equity. Students and families will be at the center of programmatic planning, giving voice to the community and curating their interest while giving artists an opportunity to develop new ideas and ways to positively impact the development of young people.
“Providing young people with a safe space to learn, grow, and play profoundly impacts their development. Having spent much time at the Goodnow Community Center, I know what reopening it means for our young people in Northeast Baltimore,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “I want to thank Arts for Learning Maryland for stepping forward and bringing arts and education programming into this long-valued community space.”
The Center’s official re-opening is marked by the beginning of Summer Arts for Learning at Goodnow, a free, six-week program for City Schools K-8 students to collaborate and engage with peers in art-making, athletics, and STEM-based learning. The program is modeled after Arts for Learning’s Summer Arts for Learning Academy, which operates out of nine Baltimore City Schools, and serves 3,000 students across the City.
To learn more about Arts for Learning at Goodnow, visit artsforlearningmd.org/goodnow.
Arts for Learning Principal Fellowship is Expanding: Applications Now Open
“To commit to imagining is to commit to looking beyond the given, beyond what appears to be unchangeable. It is a way of warding off the apathy and the feelings of futility that are the greatest obstacles to any sort of learning and, surely, to education for freedom. We need imagination.” —Maxine Greene
Imagine a place centered around dreaming—a place where ah-ha moments and big ideas are born. Leaders in education need the space to imagine. They need time in a community of peers to reflect and dream, and they need a team that understands their priorities and goals—a team that will work with them to identify and utilize the best resources to realize those goals. The Arts For Learning Principal Fellowship creates this space. And principal applications for our 2022-23 cohort are now open!
Each year, 10 principals in our Principal Fellowship program learn to use the arts as a catalyst for change. This year, we are expanding this opportunity to include principals in Prince George’s County in addition to Baltimore City! Details and the application, due June 20, can be found on our website.
The Arts For Learning Principal Fellowship prioritizes wellness as it creates space for principals to engage in mindfulness, artmaking, gathering and sharing resources, and connecting about their work in schools. Through group meetings, one-on-one mentor sessions, and weekend retreats, the experience creates a community of support to ensure schools are grounded in justice, love, joy, and anti-racism. Through mentorship and in community, principals learn to articulate how they want to use the arts as a lever for positive change in their school and develop a plan of action. We give principals time and space to dream big and we give them the knowledge and the tools to back them up.
The fellowship is strategic. It is geared around each principal and each school and their population. If you have the desire for arts integration, and putting your thoughts into action, this is an amazing program with support. —Peter Kannam, Principal, Elmer A Henderson Hopkins School: A Johns Hopkins Partnership School
The Principal Fellowship prioritizes mental health and self-care, with an understanding that leaders’ own strength is essential in taking care of their staff and students.
We know that long before the first bell rings and well past the time the last student exits the building, principals are doing the behind-the-scenes work to make sure their schools are the centers of their communities. It is the principal of the school who every other person in the building looks to for reassurance, to shoulder burdens, and establish culture. These leaders are responsible for ensuring academic achievement, but they are also key to creating a community of pride and belonging within their walls.
And each year, we are thrilled to see principals’ pride and excitement as their plans grow from dreams to reality. Thanks to the Principal Fellowship, principals are integrating the arts not just into the school day through artist residency, assembly, and after-school programs, but during family engagement nights, empowering families and caregivers to continue utilizing the arts for learning, creative expression, and growing at home. They are planning legacy murals for their school communities. They are providing embedded professional development for their teachers to learn Arts for Learning’s collaborative planning process in order to integrate the arts into existing units and teach other educators at their school to do the same. And they return to mentor future fellows. As Principal Kannam once said, “Once a fellow, always a fellow.”
10 outstanding principals from Baltimore City and Prince George’s County will be selected to participate in the Arts for Learning 2022-23 Principal Fellowship. Applications for the 2022-23 Principal Fellowship are due Monday, June 20, 2022. Learn more about the Principal Fellowship and apply on our website.
Gratitude: Year Six of the Bloomberg Arts Internship in Baltimore
This summer, up to 40 Baltimore City Public Schools students will gain impactful real-world experience with local arts institutions through the Bloomberg Arts Internship Program! We’re thrilled to partner with Bloomberg Philanthropies to manage the 7-week experience.
If you are familiar with the program, you know that BAI is much more than a summer job. It is a chance for young scholars to be challenged and inspired while gaining meaningful, real-world experience working side-by-side, three days a week, with experts within Baltimore’s stellar arts and cultural institutions. Each year, students tackle creative and administrative projects at their worksites—projects that are not only meaningful in the moment but integral to the fabric of the organizations. Thursdays and Fridays are spent in rich, immersive, and dynamic learning environments where students prepare for college, build career skills, plan for their futures, and explore a variety of art and connect with artists in different locations across the city. Since 2017, 136 students have taken advantage of this incredible experience!
There is a tremendous amount of learning and growing happening in these summer months in the program, but it is important to note that interns aren’t just acquiring skills: they are taking creative risks, forging lasting friendships, and building a community. The following excerpt is from the poem “Assumptions” by this year’s BAI social media manager (and 2020 alumna). This piece, as does work created by other interns over the course of the program, illustrates the mindsets and positive impacts BAI helps foster in students.
Tears fall daily but do anyone notice
I would honestly say barely
I always say why this or why that
How about why not?
life gets tougher everyday but you can’t let it bring you to a stop
Failure is okay because it’s not a tattoo it don’t last forever
Be that person who is open minded and prepared for whatever
I would say that’s the real definition of clever
With the student selection process in full swing, it’s hard not to feel excitement for the coming summer. Each year, an entire village comes together to ensure students have the chance to participate in this incredible opportunity. For the past several months, staff, alumni, and community partners have been working hard behind the scenes, brainstorming and putting into place plans of action to recruit applicants from across the city. Student Ambassadors–BAI alumni Shae Harris, Tyjanae Simmons, and Makayla Singletary designed and delivered info sessions virtually and in person at 11 city schools. Teachers and administrators in City Schools have spent countless hours writing heartfelt and comprehensive letters of recommendation; their support of and dedication to students unwavering–and we have nearly arrived at the moment when we get to meet these awesome future interns!
Once selected, students will gain an immense amount of knowledge from mentors and writing coaches, from their worksites, and from each other—and we will learn from them. If it is one thing we’ve seen over the past five summers, it’s that the poetic insight and artistic talent, the worldly curiosity and the stoic perseverance of our students is a constant reminder of how excellent, interesting, and kind our world can be—and that is something we can all learn from and be thankful for.
Learn more about the program at artsforlearningmd.org/bloomberg-arts-internship and be sure to follow along with our 2022 Bloomberg Arts Interns’ adventures on Instagram and on their blog.
Early Learning Week is a Wrap!
Over Early Learning Week’s five days and 20+ hours of residency sessions, we danced, sang, moved, laughed, and learned! In total, more than 3,500 children along with 300 teachers and caregivers from 16 Maryland Counties tuned in to Early Learning Week’s 20+ hours of programming. A huge thank you to everyone who attended!
Early Learning Week was packed with engaging, arts-integrated residencies and on-demand Family Involvement Workshops led by amazing Wolf Trap trained teaching artists. Learn more about each artist and explore their available programs: Caroline Ferrante, Maria-Ines-Tripodi, Mary Fields, and Katherine Lyons.
Check out what a few attendees had to say about the experience:
— “I had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed the week as did my students!”
— “I loved how Ms. Lyons used props and toy animals to support her lesson in order to help students gain a better understanding of the details and sequence of events that occurred in the story. As the teacher, I am grateful to have learned how to say goodbye in another language.”
— “My son keeps talking about cooperation and working together [the themes in Ms. Caroline’s residency], so that was a major takeaway for us!”
Interested in more high quality, arts-integrated early learning experiences? Check out the many options to do just that, below!
— Sign up for our Early Learning Video Portal! Thanks to support from the Maryland State Department of Education and partnership with Ready At Five, ALL Marylanders can access this library of 50+ artist-led educational experiences through June! Learn more and register for access here!
— Register for a FREE Arts Integrated Professional Development Workshop on Saturday, May 7, 2022 at 10am! This virtual workshop, “Good Vibrations All Day Long,” led by teaching artist Sue Trainor, will offer practical strategies that caregivers and parents of young children can use throughout the day to manage focus and transitions, encourage social-emotional and oral literacy skills, develop basic musical chops, and have loads of fun at the same time! PLUS: We are able to offer all participants Core of Knowledge Hours through MSDE’s Office of Childcare.
How to Stay Connected and Book Programs:
— What We Offer: We offer a range of programs for early learners, from assembly performances to Family Involvement Workshops to Wolf Trap residencies for infants and toddlers and grades PK & K. Visit our website here for more information on programs!
— To Book a Program: For information on booking programs and bringing an artist into your center or classroom, please contact Shana Teel ([email protected]), our amazing Senior Early Learning Coordinator.
Blacktastic Breaks Records!
On February 23, students and educators across Baltimore and Maryland turned UP and OUT for our Blacktastic: A Children’s Festival of Black History & Culture!
Thanks to all of the love and support from across the state, our second year of Blacktastic was the largest event in Arts for Learning Maryland’s 70+ year history. With 35,000 student and 133 school registrants, participants danced, sang, and acted in six engaging, educational virtual performances by Arts for Learning’s incredible teaching artists.
The virtual event honored Black History Month in the best way possible: through joyful expression! Using dancing, hip-hop, theater, and storytelling, Arts for Learning’s wonderful teaching artists explored the lives and impact of such amazing Black Marylanders as Billie Holiday, and Cab Calloway, Valerie Thomas, and Frederick Douglass. A huge thanks to the amazing Jamaal “Mr. Root” Collier, Ryan Johnson of Sole Defined, Matthew Cittendon, Debra Mims, Wombwork Productions, and Baba Bomani for sharing their beautiful, inspiring, and educational art forms with viewers.
It’s clear that students and educators had fun — and learned! As they said after the program:
“What a creative way to engage students in Black History. The fact that the focus was on people in the very state the students live in, made history “closer” to them.”
“The kids in my classroom were inspired today! One of my students performed a song to the entire class! While he was singing another student danced! They were so proud and it made my heart happy!”
“I feel that it was a very well rounded, educational, and engaging program. Kids loved it!”
“Blacktastic. It’s not a word. It’s a feeling, a celebration! This festival was an amazing opportunity for students and teachers alike to experience the power of the arts. Can’t wait to see where this goes next year!”
And the Blacktastic learning didn’t stop at the end of the broadcast. Students and teachers have access to videos of the presentations until June 30, 2022.
Interested in more opportunities to work with our artists and celebrate Black history and culture? Click here and explore our wide range of engaging, educational programs!
Arts for Learning Maryland Receives $3.9 Million Grant from the U.S. Department of Education
(BALTIMORE, MD) February 09, 2022 – Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) announced that it has been awarded a nearly $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to demonstrate arts-integrated school programs that improve academic performance and emotional well-being of students in low-wealth schools.
Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) informed Arts for Learning Maryland of the five-year $3,970,442 grant award to work with Prince George’s County Public Schools for Start with the Art: Arts Integration + Co-Teaching — A Transformative Approach to Increasing Academic Achievement and Fostering Socioemotional Development in Elementary Students. Arts for Learning Maryland, a nonprofit organization that enriches the lives and education of 180,000 Maryland children each year through arts integration experiences, is the only organization in Maryland to have been awarded one of the 30 EIR grants in FY2021.
The DOE Education Innovation and Research grant – the largest in Arts for Learning Maryland’s 70-year history – will allow the organization to research, demonstrate and model the effectiveness of using arts and artists in Kindergarten through third-grade classrooms in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
The project will establish and sustain collaboration between Prince George’s County Public School classroom teachers and Arts for Learning Maryland teaching artists as they plan and deliver lessons, including re-engaging students in the classroom following educational disruption precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Start with the Art will incorporate four arts-integrated instructional strategies that have been demonstrated to foster the academic achievement and socioemotional development of students, particularly students placed at risk by poverty: using the arts to foster students’ engagement in the classroom; using arts experiences to allow students to experience a wider range of emotional experience than is often possible in regular classroom activities; using students’ experiences of setbacks and failure in their artistic work as a way to develop students’ perseverance; and capitalizing on students’ collaborative work to foster students’ positive peer relationships.
As part of Start with the Art, classroom teachers will participate in a Training Institute offered as an extension of the Prince George’s Artist Teaching Institute (PGATI), a long running, highly respected summer professional development experience.
Start with the Art will begin in early 2022 with recruiting the initial cohort of schools, classroom teachers, teaching artists, and instructional coaches who will participate in the pilot. The first program for students will be offered in Fall 2023, with a goal to engage 2,500 students in kindergarten through third grade who are living in or near poverty and are attending school in PGCPS.
Start with the Art will be developed in collaboration with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), WolfBrown, and West Chester University (WCU). The program’s principal investigators from Wolf Brown and WCU will co-lead all aspects of the evaluation, including recruitment, assignment, data collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination to research audiences. They have collaborated extensively on other projects at the intersection of arts education and the early development placed at risk by poverty.
The EIR grant accounts for 75% of the total cost ($4.962,000) of the project through 2026.
The U.S. Department of Education Innovation and Research Program provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, or take to scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students; and rigorously evaluate such innovations. The program is designed to generate and validate solutions to persistent educational challenges and to support the expansion of effective solutions to serve substantially larger numbers of students.
Said Stacie Sanders Evans, president and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland, “This grant is a testament to our artists, staff, and board, as well as the powerful work happening within our community. It recognizes the two strategies that have been at the heart of our Summer Arts for Learning Academy – collaborative lesson planning and co-teaching – and that has resulted in academic and personal growth for nearly 9,000 students at Title I schools. Start with the Art will build additional evidence of the transformational impact that our work has on children so that even more children will have access to this kind of learning in the future.“
In informing Arts for Learning Maryland of their grant award, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said “The quality of our students’ education should not be determined by their zip code. As we continue working to invest in public education, I’m proud to support the work of organizations like Arts for Learning Maryland that take an innovative approach to helping all our students succeed. Arts for Learning Maryland’s critical work enriches students’ lives, sets them up for future success, and helps them achieve academically through hands-on engagement in the arts and their community. I will continue working to support Maryland students and to bring educational opportunities to our communities.”
“The PGCPS Department of Creative and Performing Arts has enjoyed a wonderful partnership with Arts for Learning Maryland for many years,” said Chief Executive Officer Dr. Monica Goldson. “This collaboration will support both our educators and youngest learners through arts integration experiences providing alternative, creative, and engaging instruction to meet the needs of diverse learners.”
About Arts for Learning Maryland
Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) is a nonprofit organization devoted to enriching the lives and education of Maryland’s youth through educational and culturally diverse arts programs. Through Arts for Learning, professional teaching artists from all disciplines partner with educators, schools, and school districts to provide, on average, over 300,000 hours of learning in, through, and about the arts to more than 185,000 Maryland students annually.
Arts for Learning Maryland Receives $40,000 Grant from National Endowment for the Arts
BALTIMORE— Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) has been approved for a $40,000 Grants for Arts Projects award from the National Endowment from the Arts to support its Principal Fellowship Program, a year-long initiative supporting Baltimore City Public School principals in integrating the arts into learning.
Now in its third year, the Principal Fellowship will create a cohort of school leaders to explore the arts’ power to transform school culture, enhance learning and spur social emotional growth. In 12 sessions over the 2022 summer, they will engage in collaborative planning, one-on-one coaching by teaching artists, and observations of the Summer Arts for Learning Academy and cultural institutions. The 10 principals in the cohort will each create an action plan to leverage the arts as a tool for positive change and academic improvement at their school.
The Principal Fellowship supports Baltimore City Public Schools’ Blueprint For Success priorities of whole child development, literacy, and leadership.
This grant, which marks the fifth consecutive year that Arts For Learning Maryland has received NEA funding, is part of the NEA’s nearly $29 million in funding of 1,248 projects across America that were selected to receive this first round of fiscal year 2022 funding in the Grants for Arts Projects category.
“Year after year, our work reiterates that true commitment to the arts in ways that help students thrive requires strong school leadership,” said Stacie Sanders Evans, President and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland. “We’re so thankful for the NEA’s support in ensuring Baltimore’s principals understand the impact of the arts and have the tools necessary to leverage creativity and enhance student learning.”
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects like this one from Arts for Learning Maryland that helps support the community’s creative economy,” said NEA Acting Chair Ann Eilers. “Arts for Learning Maryland in Baltimore is among the arts organizations nationwide that are using the arts as a source of strength, a path to well-being, and providing access and opportunity for people to connect and find joy through the arts.”
For more information on other projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.