What is the Greenville Arts Partnership?
The Greenville Arts Partnership is a collaboration between the Greenville Arts Council, Washington County Public School Districts and our three community arts partners, Delta Center Stage, Delta Symphony Association and the Delta Children’s Museum, focused on full arts integration in elementary schools.
Our partnership was the first in the state of Mississippi accepted into the Kennedy Center Partners in Education Program in 2003, joining over 100 other partnerships between school districts and arts organizations across the country. As a member of the Kennedy Center Partner In Education, members of the Greenville Arts Partnership attend an Annual Meeting, and have access to high-quality professional development, current research in arts education and integration.
What does the Greenville Arts Partnership Offer?
The partnership provides professional development for teachers, arts experiences for students and resource and referral on arts integration issues.
Professional development has been provided in two ways, through workshops with Teaching Artists from the Kennedy Touring Roster and grade-level and/or discipline-specific professional development with our local staff. We present a series of model demonstration lessons to teachers in grades K to 6, demonstrating connections between Partnership free arts programming and required state frameworks.
The partner arts groups present a series of live performances allowing each elementary child in the GPSD to attend at least once each year. The groups work with the Arts Council staff to develop accompanying curriculum-based educational material for distribution to teachers prior to each performance.
Over the years, we have succeeded in providing basic arts integration training district-wide as well as in-depth professional development to allow groups of teachers to increase their level of mastery. The underlying goal of GAP is to best serve the needs of our community, and we reevaluate our programs and create new ones over the years accordingly.
What Schools participate in the Greenville Arts Partnership?
Greenville Public School District first joined GAP after completing a comprehensive district-wide needs assessment in 2001 and has expanded programs to meet the needs of their students since then. In the fall of 2010 we were proud to welcome the Western Line School District to the partnership.
How does our school join the Greenville Arts Partnership?
Schools interested in participating in GAP programs or in joining the Greenville Arts Partnership should contact Megan Hines, Education Coordinator at the Greenville Arts Council. The Greenville Arts Council is open Monday-Friday 8-5 and both can be contacted via email or phone at 662.332.2246. For more information about the Greenville Arts Council visit our GAP website at http://greenvilleartspartnership.wordpress.com.
