Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to co-present a session with Tom DeCaigny, Executive Director of Performing Arts Workshop at the annual conference of the International Network of Schools for the Advancement of Arts Education.

During our presentation, we talked about the lessons we have learned in developing and improving partnerships with arts education programming stakeholders. We have worked on federally funded program implementation and evaluation work together for five years, spanning two Department of Education grants. During this time we have learned valuable tips and techniques in forming partnerships with schools, principals, classroom teachers, teaching artists and school district administrators.

Towards the end of our presentation, Tom and I led a discussion about barriers to partnerships that we have experienced and that our audience of 25 or so attendees have experiened in their diverse work situations. These barriers included:
• Scheduling
• Lack of initial interest
• Competing demands (i.e. testing, etc.)
• Turnover (all levels)
• Lip service (aka false agreement)
• Lack of support and buy-in (admin.)
• Exhaustion – test scores, distant memories
• Teacher experience/partnership/mentorship
• Arts phobia – lack of arts experience

We also brainstormed solutions to these barriers. Our audience had very creative and useful ideas on overcoming barriers and methods to improve partnerships.
• Relationship building (principal buy-in)
• Principal training
• Hire based on connection to the arts (teachers and principals)
• Use teacher “hidden” arts skills
• Know sequence and need of curriculum
• Know curriculum themes re: integration
• Arts integration training/background
• Overcoming competition
• Building citizenship

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in our conference session!