Enhance Creativity, Enrich Minds

Learning Partners

Teachers, Administrators, Site Coordinators and Principals, thank you for partnering with us to enhance creativity and enrich the minds of our learners.

Access our robust Learning Partners Catalog to learn more about the many programs and resources we offer.

View Learning Partners Catalog

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

Learning Partners is a nationally recognized collaboration formed by community leaders as a way to provide high quality arts and cultural activities to all Dallas ISD elementary students each year. The program unites Dallas ISD, the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, and more than 100 arts, science and cultural organizations and teaching artists under the guidance of managing partner Big Thought.

How It Works

Through funding from the Dallas ISD Visual & Performing Arts and Teaching & Learning Departments, every elementary school in the district receives money for procurement of fine arts and art-infused programs experiences as well as science and social studies infused programs provided by partners that are contracted through the Learning Partners program.

Become a learning partner

Just like other Educators, Program Partners play an integral role in the development and support of our learners’ educational experience. We’re grateful for each and every one of our Program Partners because we know our work wouldn’t be possible without them!

Program Partners facilitate and deliver their own curriculum as contractors at Big Thought programs and activities. A Program Partner can either be an individual or organization that provides hand-on learning experiences to our students.

Examples of Program Partner experiences include:

  1. Delivering a series of five sessions on the art of computer coding at a Thriving Minds After School program
  2. Listing your organization’s summer programs and activities on the Dallas City of Learning portal

Resources For Our Partners

With Learning Partner Representatives, you can choose from rich and diverse resources that best support campus and classroom goals. This guide will help you to choose the right experiences for your students.

Download The Guide

Our Program Catalog is an online resource that allows you to browse the many programs and resources offered through Learning Partners, and book quality education experiences for your students. The Catalog portal displays featured programs and helps you find programs or field trips that support your academic goals.

In order to maximize your Catalog experience, please make sure to get an invitation code from your site coordinator and register in the Catalog portal. After signing in, you’ll be able to see your school’s information, create program wish lists, and search through our resources based off of your specified search criteria.

Visit Catalog

Our number one priority for any Big Thought program or activity is to keep our students safe, especially when it comes to transportation. That’s why we allow you to use your Learning Partners funds for transportation to a Learning Partners funded field trip.

There are different procedures to secure transportation depending on which fund you used to make the voucher. For example, Fine Arts funded transportation would be booked by the Visual and Performing Arts Department, whereas Science and Social Studies transportation would be booked by the STEM Department.

Transportation must be scheduled 21 days prior to the field trip date. See below for more information about how to apply your voucher to transportation, or questions on which department you should contact.

Scheduling transportation for Science & Social Studies funded vouchers

Scheduling transportation for Fine Arts funded vouchers

Through funding from the Dallas ISD Visual & Performing Arts and Teaching & Learning Departments, every elementary school in the district receives money for procurement of fine arts and art-infused programs experiences, as well as science and social studies infused programs provided by partners that are contracted through the Learning Partners program.

The Principal and Site Coordinator team from each school should work together to determine how the school’s two campus allocations will be divided. Each school can receive eight hours of technical

Every campus is assigned a Learning Partners Representative (LP Rep). The LP Reps visits each school for the Fall Collaborative Workshops to assist the school’s Site Coordinator and faculty in choosing programs and discussing strategies for integrating programs into the teachers’ curriculum.

FAQS

Once you are ready to make your choice and begin searching for programs on our website database, you must first register and identify yourself as a teacher at your school. Visit the Learning Partners Portal and click “Register” in the top right hand corner to begin registration.

Once you have logged into the Learning Partners Portal, you can search online for more than 700 Learning Partners programs. The Learning Partners online program search has the most complete and up-to-date listings of arts and art-infused programs available as well as social studies and science programs to choose from. Use the “Making the Best Choice Worksheet” on page 18 of the Educator’s Guide to assist you in your program search.

In order to complete a wish list item, you must fill out the Wish List item form with information such as provider, program name, format, time frame, allocation and more. View the form for exact requirements.

Your Site Coordinator Team will review past years’ bus amounts and the calculations on the bus costs worksheet to determine how much funding will be approved on a voucher.

The teacher listed on the voucher must contact the program provider and negotiate the final date and time for the selected field trip or on-campus program. Once a date has been finalized, the provider will request the five-digit voucher number and four-digit approval code. This will be used to fill out the “verify scheduling” portion of the voucher that must be returned to the school Site Coordinator Team within a week of obtaining the voucher. After the voucher has been submitted, the teacher should work with the Site Coordinator to follow the remaining steps on the voucher workflow.

Contact Info

For more information about Learning Partners or it’s programs and resources, please contact us!

Laura Orange
Learning Partners Team Captain

Laura Orange
Manager of Learning Partners

Email Laura Orange