Arts Every Day’s Impact Fund awards up to $5,000 for 2-3 partner schools who implement an outcome based art project that will have a long-term educational impact on their students and the surrounding community.
Moravia Park’s Garden Bed Project, May 26, 2017
Point Breeze Credit Union Partners with Arts Every Day to Build an Outdoor Classroom, June 23, 2016
Renaissance Academy’s Stained Glass Memorial Project with Artist Sue Stockman, June 22, 2016
Arts Abilities Initiative
Despite the positive impact on student learning, the arts accessibility gap is even greater for students with disabilities. For students with disabilities in particular, the opportunity to be self-expressive and successful in an artistic medium can often diffuse or transcend the sense of isolation and frustration they may feel when working with their disability in daily life. According to the National Center for Technology Innovation and Center for Implementing Technology in Education, schools that integrate the arts into their curriculum have discovered that the arts capture the attention of students and teachers alike.
Research by The Lab School, a school that specializes serving children with learning disabilities, indicates that the arts continually engage students with disabilities in observation, rehearsing, weighing, and judging — all of which are essential meta-cognitive tools for learning with which students with learning, behavior, and attention disabilities often struggle. In response to a growing interest in arts integration from special educators and school programs serving students with disabilities, Arts Every Day launched the Arts Abilities Initiative in 2015 to ensure arts accessibility for ALL students.
With the generous support of the Thomas W. Bradley Foundation, Arts Every Day is providing a small group professional learning community and additional financial support for student programs to six Arts Every Day Schools:
- Gwynns Falls Elementary School: General population school with the only self-contained program for students with hearing loss, hearing impairment and profound deafness;
- National Academy Foundation: General population school with a life skills program for students with multiple disabilities;
- Patterson High School: General population school with a life skills program for students with multiple disabilities;
- Sharp-Leadenhall Elementary School: Special Education school for students with social and emotional disturbances;
- William S. Baer School: Special Education school for students with multiple physical and cognitive disabilities;
- Westport Academy Elementary/Middle School: General population school with a self-contained life skills program for students with autism or multiple disabilities;
In partnership with the Maryland Disability Law Center, Arts Every Day is building a range of training and resources engage students with and without disability:
Inclusion Training for general classroom educators empowers teachers to engage all students in the arts through the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Model. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone–not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.
Drama-Based Literacy Strategies for Special Educators is a three session course offered to teachers district wide as part of Baltimore City’s 2015-16 systemic professional development offerings. Led by Author and Arts Integration Specialist, Lenore Blank Kelner teachers will learn how to use drama to activate multiple learning modalities (visual, aural and kinesthetic) so all students are engaged in learning. The course is supported through a contract with The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts Very Special Arts program.