Happy New Year! As we move into 2023, we would like to take time to honor all we accomplished in 2022. This past year was filled with major successes and accomplishments here at ARCK. In the 2021-22 school year, six ARCK Teaching Artists worked with 720 students and 35 classroom teachers across six partner schools. COVID-19 proved to take a huge toll on our students’ academic and social-emotional skills. Despite this, we saw tremendous improvements throughout the year for our students. 78% of teachers believe that the creative skills learned through ARCK transferred to other subject areas, and 99% saw their students show social emotional growth. Our work was critical for our students who all suffered from learning loss in the wake of the pandemic, and we are so excited to continue this work into 2023!
Our students’ work was exceptional, and it went far beyond the classroom. In the spring, our Miles of Murals project saw Blackstone students and BIPOC artist Silvina Mizrahi create a mural that was displayed on the Jumbotron at Fenway Park. The Red Sox themselves were even involved, sending a video message to our students to celebrate their achievements. Additionally, we had a student accepted into the Boston Arts Academy, a major accomplishment that we celebrated by presenting her with our Above and Beyond Award at our 11th annual gala in October. We are so proud of her work!
This year, we plan to expand our reach by expanding our educator training program, impacting as many students as possible. We will continue to provide our push-in program to Boston-area schools, but training educators will allow ARCK’s mission and vision to be carried out in classrooms across the region and beyond. Through this approach, classroom educators will learn to use our successful arts-integration framework and schools can create sustainable interdisciplinary collaboration among their staff. Additionally, this training will provide educators with graduate course credit through our partnership with Lesley University. Ultimately, we hope to combat learning loss and social-emotional deficits for students everywhere, and in 2023 we will lay the foundation for a new and improved ARCK.
We hope you have enjoyed a restful and relaxing holiday season, and we wish you the best of luck in 2023. Cheers from ARCK!