Quality arts education offers significant opportunities for students to build expressive and imaginative abilities—extraordinarily important tools for students. ArtsConnection provides arts education that taps into students’ individuality and creativity to help them forge new pathways to navigate their education and future, while building critical thinking, creative problem solving, heightened self-esteem, literacy and strong communicative abilities.
Programs are led by 140 racially, ethnically and culturally diverse teaching artists whose distinctive and varied artistic perspectives inspire, guide and support students. Each year, AC partners with NYC public schools (grades pre-K through 12) across the five boroughs, providing artist residencies, professional development for teachers and artists, and family arts events. Out-of-school-time (OST) Teen Programs link the city’s cultural resources to the developmental and educational needs of teens, while providing space for artistic expression, experiential learning and leadership development. The students we reach are representative of the larger NYC public school population (85% are students of color and 73% are economically disadvantaged).
Beyond our work in New York City we provide in-person, synchronous, and asynchronous professional development opportunities for educators to build their capacity to provide quality arts education programming for and with young people.