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Thriving MindsThriving Minds is a city-wide partnership that surrounds children and their families with high quality arts and cultural experiences that stimulate creativity and learning. Dallas Independent School District (Dallas ISD), the City of Dallas and dozens of professional arts and cultural agencies have come together to forge this alliance, of which  Big Thought serves as managing partner. In February 2007, The Wallace Foundation, a New York-based private foundation, awarded the initiative a grant of $8 million over three years; these funds will be matched and exceeded by public sector funds. 

Thriving Minds is an expansion of Dallas ArtsPartners, a successful public-private collaboration that provides every Dallas ISD elementary school student with equal access to community arts and cultural resources and helps integrate them into the classroom. ArtsPartners serves all of Dallas ISD’s 100,000 elementary students and 6,000 elementary educators.

After extensive community conversations, research and analysis, it’s clear that much of what children learn in the arts takes place in three separate, but related, areas. They benefit most if strategies and activities in each are coordinated and connected. Those learning areas are:

  • In-School Creative Learning - Providing each Dallas public elementary student with equal access to quality arts education 
  • Integrated Creative Learning - Integrating arts & cultural experiences into Dallas ISD elementary curriculum
  • Out-of-School Time Creative Learning - Connecting learning in and out of school and helping community and educational institutions work together

Thriving Minds' strategy is to strengthen each area and connect them into a system. Plan highlights include:

In-School Creative Learning

  • Hiring 140 additional music and visual arts specialists, so every Dallas ISD elementary school has one certified teacher in each discipline. (All will be in place by August 2009)
  • Instituting a Dallas ISD requirement that every elementary student receive 45 minutes of both music and visual art instruction every week.
  • Developing tools for assessing and measuring students’ arts learning in school.

Integrated Creative Learning

  • Aligning ArtsPartners programming with the new district curriculum in core subject areas.
  • Increasing ArtsPartners professional development for teachers and cultural partners.
  • Assessing ways to expand quality measurements to include arts and cultural providers. A teacher feedback loop ensures that the arts and cultural programming they receive is connecting with their core curriculum needs.

Out-of-School Time Creative Learning

  • Hiring neighborhood-based Creative Community liaisons to connect existing arts resources.
  • Establishing local leadership councils in existing facilities. The initial three information centers will eventually grow to as many as 20 centers across the city.
  • Coordinating ways to fill gaps in creative learning services.
  • Implementing a strategic communications plan, which includes a website, to raise awareness of neighborhood-based arts opportunities and encourage participation.