District Community Arts Teams

Arts for All’s arts education planning process begins with the formation of a Community Arts Team (CAT) comprised of stakeholders from within the school district and the community. CATs can include board of education members, district and school administrators, parents, students, teachers, artists and arts organization representatives. The inclusiveness of the CAT is important because the crafting and approval of arts education policy and plan create consensus on a vision and provide a roadmap for achieving goals. Shared leadership and collaboration are key to building strong arts education programming.

The Community Arts Team works with strategic planning coaches provided by Arts for All. Coaches guide the Community Arts Team in key focus areas including standards-based curriculum design, student assessment, professional development, instruction, methodology and building partnerships. Arts for All resources especially useful to CATs are the sample policies and plans available online as part of Tools and Resources and the District Case Studies report on the experiences of Arts for All districts designing and starting to implement their arts education programs.