Board holds arts-integration work session, highlights 10-year program, upcoming conference and teacher recognition

Missoula County Public Schools trustees spent a work-session meeting exploring the district’s arts-integration initiative, hearing presentations from assistant superintendent Vinny Jamana, Spark Arts director Sienna Claiborne, academic and community services director Barbara Frank and arts-integration coach Karen Bartels.

Presenters described arts integration as a district strategic priority and reviewed a roughly decade-long timeline of activities: local launches in 2013, expansion of elementary and middle-school arts experiences, district and community partnerships under the Kennedy Center’s Any Given Child framework, teacher-leader professional development, and growth of an arts-integration lesson repository and residency directory. Spark Arts became a 501(c)(3) in 2022, presenters said, and the district has continued to add visual art staff and coaching roles to scale the practice.

The presentation highlighted two community-facing events: a Spark Arts Integration Awards Night at the Missoula Art Museum on May 14 (to honor teachers demonstrating arts integration in classrooms) and a district-hosted arts-integration conference June 19 that organizers said will be free for educators thanks to grant funding and include 10 Kennedy Center-affiliated artists as presenters. Presenters said the conference will waive the typical conference fee for educators, provide stipends and feature maker spaces and national teaching artists; they said the event will bring roughly 350 educators to sessions and include community partners and visiting delegation teachers from Doral Academy.

Demonstrations during the work session included hands-on activities designed to model arts-integrated instruction: a brief “line stories” drawing exercise and a continuous-line/wire-sculpture activity modeled on Alexander Calder’s work. Karen Bartels described how teachers have used arts-integration strategies across subjects — dance to demonstrate the water cycle, reader’s theater to practice fluency passages, and visual art to teach two- and three-dimensional geometry — and she cited research on teacher-clarity and arts strategies that can produce above-hinge effect sizes for student learning.

Speakers emphasized equity and access as program goals: Spark Arts’ founders and partners aim to reduce disparities in arts access created by uneven PTO/PTA funding and to provide consistent arts experiences across schools. Presenters said a facility-wide arts-integration strategic planning process and continued local fundraising will support program sustainability for the next decade.

Board members praised the session. Trustees asked whether theater teachers and other arts educators could attend the June conference (presenters said yes), and the board discussed the program’s role in curriculum, teacher development and community partnerships.

Speakers named in this item include Assistant Superintendent Vinny Jamana, Sienna Claiborne (Spark Arts director), Barbara Frank (Academic and Community Services director), Karen Bartels (arts integration instructional coach), and several board members.