Last school year, a group of 30 leaders came together each month to collect and analyze the data that is guiding Any Given Child Indy. They were called the Community Arts Team.

The new phase of the program is to design the programs and to build budgets for those programs with 30 new volunteers who have joined the initiative including parents, teachers, and business people. There are four committees, led by previous members of the Community Arts Team (except for one new person), and those co-chairs had their first meeting together in October. These groups are already moving fast!

1. The Budget & Resources Committee, chaired by Greg Wallis, Harrison College, and Dr. Yvonne Stokes, Indianapolis Public Schools, has identified over a dozen potential funding sources.
2. The Evaluation & Assessment Committee, co-chaired by Dr. Jason Kelly, IUPUI, and Andrew Black, Central Indiana Community Foundation, is wrestling with the work of prioritizing gaps and defining tiers of engagement.
3. The Creative Engagement Committee, co-chaired by Michael Grady, WRTV-6, and Gail Thomas-Strong, WFYI, selected parents as their key audience for community discussions on arts education.
4. Additionally, the Professional Development Committee, co-chaired by David Newman, Indianapolis Public Schools, and JoEllen Florio Rossebo, Arts for Learning, has selected their first Arts Integration trainer for January 2017.

Lastly, Dr. Wanda Legrand, IPS Deputy Superintendent for Academic Improvement, and Ernest Disney-Britton, Arts Council of Indianapolis, presented an update to the Indianapolis Public School Board on October 27 that was broadcast on WFYI. It is an exciting time to be engaged in arts education!

Ernest Disney-Britton
Director of Grant Services & Education Partnerships
Arts Council of Indianapolis