This workshop will address how the various roles and perspectives within an arts partnership enable and support the ongoing alignment of the arts with a district-wide literacy initiative.

Participants will explore how a district-wide arts partnership is built upon the scaffolding of various funding sources, ongoing professional development, organizational and institutional infrastructures, shared resources, multiple assessment strategies, and interpersonal relationships. The result deepens the potential for the arts to play an authentic role in educational reform.

Thursday 9:15-10:45

Conference Strand: Education/Policy Reform

Educators: will be able to articulate the ways that they can contribute on a classroom level to the growth and sustainability of a district-wide arts partnership.

Organizational Administrators: will be able to identify how the various players within an arts partnership community contribute to maximizing the potential of the arts to affect educational reform.

Educational Administrators: will be able to identify strategies that can be used to support a healthy infrastructure for an arts partnership.

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Margaret L. Kaiser, Executive Director for the Arts in Education Institute of WNY, has a 23-year history of developing partnerships with school districts throughout western NY.  The highlight of her experience has been developing the Arts in Education Institute Center at Niagara Falls, which has enabled her to expand the scope of an urban arts partnership to include district-wide aesthetic education programming, a free community performing arts series, and a national research-based AIE project.