Big Thought has been coordinating curriculum-enhancing programs for Dallas ISD elementary schools every year since 1998 with Dallas ArtsPartners, an innovative partnership including the City of Dallas, Dallas ISD and dozens of arts & cultural organizations all across North Texas. Through Dallas ArtsPartners (AP), we provide training and manage funding for the programs and help link elementary school teachers to more than 60 arts & cultural partners, in order for them to provide their students with educational arts experiences.
To help all those DISD elementary school teachers, we rely on 15 part-time staffers, mostly retired educators - known as the AP Representatives. This year, all 15 are returning veterans with lots of practice running workshops and fielding questions from the teachers at the schools they represent. Those 15 Reps are backed up in the office by our awesome and oh-so-efficient AP team. These capable folks train the AP Representatives and the 156 Site Coordinators; verify the vouchers for funding - over 1500 so far this schoolyear, with more to go; and confirm the programs with the schools and the arts & cultural providers. WOW!
Since September 2, the AP Reps have been out in the field at the schools they represent, doing full-day workshops to help the teachers finalize their programs and create vouchers for funding. 95 workshops have been done as of right now, with the remainder to come before the beginning of November. This has kept the AP team back at the office busy answering questions and troubleshooting issues, since a day could have as many as 10 different workshops happening all at the same time!
This year also marks the 3rd year of a collaboration between Dallas ArtsPartners and the Fine Arts Department of the Dallas ISD to give every single fourth-grader in the DISD a special educational tour of the Dallas Museum of Art. This is an incredible opportunity - and that program kicks off next week with the first fourth-grade tour.
For more on our programs and partnerships, see Our Programs on the Big Thought website.
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