Collaboration for Maximum Impact | Jefferson Parish Schools

“The students were engaged 100%,” exclaimed an excited Jefferson Parish Schools teacher when asked about her experience with a YALA teaching artist in the classroom.

Over the last six years, hundreds of Jefferson Parish school educators grades Pre-K through 5th have worked alongside teaching artists to plan, implement, and refine English Language Arts and math lessons integrated with the arts through two U. S. Department of Education grants. Unlike many traditional professional development programs where workshops are delivered as prescriptive models with decontextualized information, YALA’s method of co-teaching between classroom teacher and teaching artist is effective because it is collaborative and teacher-centered. Co-teaching removes the “top down” delivery common to professional development workshops and makes professional learning a team activity, thus validating that classroom teachers have valuable insights to contribute to arts-integrated lesson planning.

Professional development is not just for teachers: school leaders in Jefferson Parish Schools are participating too in order to increase “buy in” for the use of arts integration in the classroom, cultivate a creative and inclusive school culture, and support their teachers’ professional growth.  Involving school leaders in the learning process has definitely helped them understand the benefits of arts integration in their schools: “…it gives kids who are typically into more hands on-learning, visual learners, it gives them opportunities to … see the content in a different way. It also helps in terms of just artistic freedom, being able to express themselves. I just think that all of those are great ways that arts-integration has really helped the students to really master the content that we’ve been trying to teach.”

The learning in our partnership with Jefferson Parish Schools works both ways. As our partnership extends and deepens, YALA program staff are having valuable conversations with teachers and school leaders about how to improve the program to increase the impacts of the work on teacher development and student learning outcomes. As affirmed by YALA Board of Directors President Marguerite Moisio, “We couldn't ask for better partners in Jefferson Parish Schools and are proud of the YALA education staff for their innovation and commitment in developing and implementing high quality, comprehensive learning opportunities for youth.”