CTL consults AEI on new and expanded arts education program offerings

Several months ago, Lourdes Karas, executive director of the Appalachian Education Initiative (AEI) in Morgantown West Virginia, approached CTL about assisting her organization with planning for new and expanded arts education initiatives to serve schools throughout the state. Lou has known of CTL and its work since she served as education director for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, where she saw first hand CTL’s coaching designs and use of the arts to assist teachers with reaching and teaching all students.

The mission of AEI is to strengthen the role of arts education in the public schools by promoting the essential role of arts education to a child’s personal development, academic performance and workforce preparation. AEI accomplishes its mission by providing arts education advocacy and research services and by facilitating and expanding arts education programming to benefit children in underserved areas of West Virginia and, ultimately, throughout Central Appalachia. (Source: www.appalachianeducationinitiative.org/)

CTL and AEI are currently collaborating on plans to look at programs AEI might design or expand over the next three years. Early discussions have explored a new West Virginia study on the status of arts education in its public schools; the development of a parent advocacy toolkit to give parents an understanding of the value of arts in education and ways to approach school leaders and teachers about including the arts in the daily curriculum; training for teaching artists to support their work in school settings; and the design of a new arts education “framework” for school self-assessments of their current arts education programs, enabling them to target professional development and the use of external arts resources to increase program effectiveness.

AEI also serves as the state’s Alliance for Arts Education, an affiliate program of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC. In this capacity, AEI can serve as a critical bridging agency for the state's arts education professional associations, individual teaching artists, parents and the community.

CTL is very pleased to be in on the ground floor of this new and exciting program design for AEI.

For more information, contact:
Dennis Horn
v. 502.895.9500 x329