87 Pageviews Read Stories
Causes: Arts & Culture, Arts, Culture & Humanities, Arts Education, Education, Elementary & Secondary Schools, Literacy
Mission: Urban Arts Partnership (UAP) is a non-profit organization that serves difficult-to-reach youth attending Title I schools in the New York City Department of Education public school system. Its mission is to strengthen public schools by providing arts-based solutions to urban educational issues. A co-founder of four new small schools and contributing innovator in effective arts integration teaching practices, UAP accomplishes its mission though an arts-based holistic model of programming that cultivates the intellectual and socio-emotional development of disadvantaged youth. The organization currently serves 60 Title I schools across the city, including five partner schools in which its comprehensive Creating Minds approach is delivered to advance achievement for struggling students. The Creating Minds program is the synthesis of five defining program strands for school-wide, teacher and student services: 1) Strategic Support, 2) Academic Integration, 3) Youth Development, 4) Credit Recovery, and
5) Advanced Studios. These services offer supports for disengaged students who would otherwise fall behind academically, drop out of school, and have few or no opportunities for a positive future. Funding is currently sought to bolster gaps caused by system-wide NYC DOE budget cuts, as well as recent programmatic initiatives that are in high demand (e.g., UAP’s “Fresh Prep” program proven to increase Regents exam performance is in expansion).
Programs: The Urban Arts Partnership Program creates rigorous, engaging and pro-social school communities through a multi-layered integration of the arts. The program is designed to create enduring arts programming in public schools committed to integrating the arts into their culture both academically and socially. The UAP model offers two tiers of arts programming: Arts Integration and After School programs. The in-school Arts Integration program gives students new and unique opportunities to succeed in school by providing alternative ways to learn and express knowledge of academic subject matter through the study of an art form. The After-School program provides a safe and nurturing environment where students focus on building transferable skills (discipline, collaboration, inquiry, and reflection), constructively socialize, study and create meaningful art. A school community with a UAP Program will experience higher attendance rates, a reduction in violent incidents and a stronger sense of community for students, teachers and parents. By integrating the arts into the academic school day and after school settings, we seek to engage non-traditional learners by helping them to understand curricular content and inspiring students to build community. Included in this integration of the arts is a promising practice for English Language Learners, recognized in 2007 by the Center for Arts Education and the New York State Council on the Arts, called Image Writing, which helps with language acquisition and pro-social youth development. Each residency is aligned with the Department of Education?s Curriculum Blueprint for The Arts and with New York State Learning Standards appropriate to the discipline.