First Step Grants - Arts in Education

This program, now in its third year, is designed to develop strong arts education programming based on the following goals:

• To engage community members in support of K-12 arts education.
• To encourage and support newer and/or smaller arts education partnerships that will continue beyond the scope of this grant program, and, in some cases, evolve into larger community consortia.
• To help these partnerships move toward the development of deeper and longer-term opportunities for learning in and through the arts, and systemic support for comprehensive arts education for all students, and to move beyond arts exposure / arts enrichment programs with lower long-term impact.
• To support identification and implementation of the most needed “first steps” towards this vision of high quality, sustainable arts education programming.

The First Step grant will support a variety of steps towards improving teaching and learning in the arts, including curriculum development/improvement, assessment development/training, professional development for classroom teachers and/or local artists, and workshops for students led by professional teaching artists.

First Step grants require partnerships between schools, parents, and professional arts education providers (i.e., arts organizations and/or independent teaching artists). Broader partnerships involving additional community organizations are encouraged. In all cases, program plans must be in alignment with the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) in the arts. In 2008, 9 First Step grantees received funding for the 2008-2009 school year, for a total of over $37,000.