Artist Teacher Partnership

In its 8th year, ATP is now partially funded through the California Arts Council Artist in Schools Grant Program, as well as the Heller Foundation. ATP is an arts integration program that unites classroom teachers with mentor artists under the leadership of Arts Council Santa Cruz County. The goal of the program is three-fold: • to give students high quality arts instruction, based in arts integration; • to provide professional development to both generalist teachers and teaching artists; and • to develop a culture of value for arts education at the school, and build capacity for sustaining the program. Following the Summer Arts Institute, elementary classroom teachers are paired with SPECTRA artists. Each pair concentrates on one of the major arts disciplines: Dance, Music, Theatre, or Visual Arts, and work over a 16-week period to design and deliver arts instruction to students in the generalist’s classroom. The classroom teacher and teaching artist collaborate on content and delivery. Teachers gradually take over portions or complete lessons under the artist’s guidance. In addition, the teaching artist teaches three other classes in the school, although the same level of classroom teacher involvement is not expected.