Alabama: Arts Education Junior Leadership Team

The Junior Leadership Team met for the first time in February 2015. Photo courtesy of ASCA Visual Arts Program Manager Elliot Knight

In 2013, the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) partnered with the Alabama Department of Education to launch the Alabama Arts Education Leadership Team. This task force works to ensure fully funded, high-quality arts education for every Alabama student that not only enlightens and inspires but also fosters the faculties necessary for college and career readiness. This year, the task force invited 22 college and high school students to contribute their fresh perspectives by serving on the Junior Leadership Team. This “think tank” of young people under 25 convened for the first time in February to consider effective ways to communicate the need for guaranteed arts education. Subsequently, the Junior Team formed several working groups to create a documentary film, to form a social media campaign, to provide messaging for the state’s superintendent of schools and to brainstorm innovative promotional work for the Alabama Alliance for Arts Education. According to ASCA, the Senior Team—comprising representatives of the arts, schools, nonprofit organizations and the private sector—is benefiting from the recent efforts of Junior Team members as well as from their energy, intelligence and commitment. The Junior Team will join the full Arts Education Leadership Team again in early May to work on a new comprehensive statewide arts education plan, due this September. To learn more, contact ASCA Arts in Education Program Manager Diana F. Green.