a federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) to spur a “turnaround” in
school performance. With the support of district leadership, Findley
applied for the national pilot cohort of the Turnaround Arts initiative.
Along with seven other schools across the U.S., Findley was selected,
given material supports from NAMM and Crayola, and programming
supports from national trainers and Turnaround Arts implementation
staff. Guidance and structure around leveraging SIG funding to deploy
arts assets for overall school improvement was provided over two
years of implementation.
part of the scaled programming. In 2013 Oak Park, Cattell, and
Madison Elementary Schools, along with Harding Middle School (all
buildings in the North feeder pattern) began their work through the
Turnaround Arts.
What were some of the challenges facing you at the outset of this
initiative (planning time, teacher support/buy-in, assessment,
etc)? How did you overcome or address those challenges?
All of those things were certainly challenges: how do we get teachers
on board? Wh ]