Arts & Media Preparatory Academy
2015-2019
School Description
"We are an innovative small high school that prepares students to be active citizens, lifelong independent learners, and confident, cooperative and creative thinkers. Our school is not just a place for visual artists, but for students who want to showcase their ideas to the world. Our focus on literacy, the arts, media, and research will help students to think critically about their world and prepare them for future life challenges. At our school students will learn the value of hard work and perseverance while figuring out new and innovative ways of making the world run more smoothly."
Contact Information
Website: schools.nyc.gov/schoolportals/18/k589/default.htm
Principal: Deborah Glauner- glauner@artsmediaprep.org
Additional ETA Contact: Timothy Gilroy, Assistant Principal- gilroy@artsmediaprep.org
Four-Year Plan Goals
Goal One: To integrate the arts into all academics, including designing a stand-alone "Art Literacy" ELA class.
Goal Two: To develop a more diversified arts program including various mediums, styles and techniques to ensure students are better prepared to enroll in collegiate art programs.
Approach
Goal One: The work for the goal started by developing the "buy-in" among the full faculty via monthly all-staff PD. Participants had the opportunity to engage in hands-on art-making projects, and draw connections between the activities and their own classrooms and curricula. The school is then scaling up the deeper classroom-based work in one content area at a time, with individual teachers developing arts-integrated projects or units of study, sharing out with their peers, and documenting the work for future iteration and execution.
Goal Two: ETA is supporting the art program through big investments of reusable equipment and consumable supplies so that the art teacher is able to develop and document units around new media. The art teacher is also tapping into a variety of professional development and peer supports to learn new best practices from colleagues and master teachers and strengthen the rigor of his program.
Arts Partnerships
Goal One: Brooklyn Arts Council facilitated in-depth, targeted PD for ELA teachers, coupled with lesson planning, observation in the classroom, and de-briefing. (This has been for Year 1; partnership for Year 2 is TBD.)
Sustainability Plan
Goal One: Continued cycles of PD and peer share-outs will prepare new staff members and help continue to support and inspire veteran staff. With all new lessons documented, staff will have a growing library of ideas to pull from.
Goal Two: The support provided during the four years will have strengthened the art teacher's practice. That, coupled with the documentation during the four years and new relationships with other colleagues and partners, will allow him to continue to execute the more rigorous curricular elements independently in the future.