CREATIVE SCHOOLS

 Joyful Learning.
Empowered Teachers.

KID smART Creative Schools foster an educational landscape of equitable instruction, empowered teachers, and joyful engagement in learning. Boost student learning, energize your educators and increase school morale through our arts-integrated programming.

How Creative Schools Work

Collaborative Residency

Bring arts-integrated learning into your classroom with a professional by your side

Create learning experiences that foster deep and joyful learning for all learners with the guidance of our Professional Teaching Artists. Our Professional Teaching Artists will co-plan and co-teach 20 hours a week. You’ll learn to take risks with your teaching methodologies while still meeting existing curriculum standards and improving overall academic success.  

  • • Artist & Teacher collaboratively plan and teach integrated lessons 

    • Teacher is expert in curriculum/Artist is expert in arts pairing

    • Artist is in school full year 10 or 20 hours/wk

Arts Experience In Schools (AXIS)

Discover best practices

Deepen your arts integration knowledge through participation in monthly workshops. Build a portfolio of resources to increase your students' academic growth, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking skills while gaining confidence as an artist.

  • • PD topics exploring SEL, STEAM, literacy, and specialized learning communities; led by local and nationally-recognized presenters such as Ashe Cultural Arts Center and the Kennedy Center

    • Earn CEU hours

    • Stipend for participation and supply/ implementation budget

Personalized Development Opportunities

Transform the learning environment

KID smART offers an additional 12 hours of instruction that can be used for professional development, one-on-one coaching, or family workshops

  • • Up to 12 hours of additional P.D. for Creative School Faculty

    • Artful Families workshops to engage families in art activities to encourage healthy mental and social development

    • Customized coaching opportunities for classroom teachers

Leadership teams at schools in the Greater New Orleans area can submit the form or click the button below to sign up for a meeting with our Education Director, Dr. Kyley Pulphus-Smith. Please route all other inquiries through our Contact Us page.

Interested in becoming a Creative School for school year 25-26?

Book Dr. Kyley

When you have teachers that are learning new ways to meet the needs of all students, and students who are having fun while learning, you have higher achievement and higher understanding which ultimately leads to school success.

Teacher, Hynes Charter

Creative School Levels

Choose from three levels to meet your schools needs

Arts Integration
Intensive

Total Value: $88,992

  • Full-Year Collaborative Artist Residency for up to seven classrooms per semester
    $52,222 value

  • AXIS Monthly Arts Integration Professional Development for upto 10 teachers
    $21,270 value

  • 12 hours of in-school professional development, coaching, or two Family Art Nights
    $9,000 value

  • Each AXIS teacher receives a $500 stipend and a $150 implementation budget*
    $6,500 value *based on attendance

Your School Investment $17,500

Arts Integration Fundamentals

Total Value: $58,381

  • Full-Year Collaborative Artist Residency for up to four classrooms per semester
    $26,111 value

  • AXIS Monthly Arts Integration Professional Development for upto 10 teachers
    $21,270 value

  • 6 hours of in-school professional development, coaching, or two Family Art Nights
    $4,500 value

  • Each AXIS teacher receives a $500 stipend and a $150 implementation budget*
    $6,500 value *based on attendance

Your School Investment $12,000

Arts Integration PLC

(Professional Learning Community)

Total Value: $22,770

  • AXIS Monthly Arts Integration Professional Development for upto 10 teachers ($21,270 value)

  • One Family Art Night hosted at your school ($1,500 value)

Your School Investment $6,500

 KID smART Creative Schools serve over 3,500 students and 1,000 educators each year

  • Audubon Gentilly

  • Audubon Uptown Lower

  • Dr. John Ochsner Discovery Health Sciences Academy

  • Esperanza Foundational Academy

  • Edward Hynes Charter School Lakeview

  • International School of Louisiana St. Roch

  • International School Of Louisiana Westbank

    International School Of Louisiana Westbank

  • International School Of Louisiana Uptown

    International School Of Louisiana Uptown

  • Kenner Discovery

  • Noble Minds Institute for Whole Child Learning

  • ReNew Laurel

    ReNEW Laurel

  • The Willow School New Orleans

    The Willow School New Orleans
Apply To be a creative school

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both. Learn more by clicking here.

  • While the total value of our Creative School program is $50,500, KID smART commits to fundraising 70% of the total cost. Meaning your school investment is only $15,000! Your school will receive a full-year artist residency, 9 AXIS sessions, an implementation budget, and 12 additional hours of in-school services.

  • No prior art experience is required.

  • KID smART classroom teachers and teaching artists are partners. They alternate roles as lead teacher, behavioral manager, documentarian, etc. They both use arts and curriculum language during instruction, taking advantage of spontaneous opportunities to reinforce learning.

    Your co-teacher provides 20 hours of in-classroom support each week. Together you’ll plan and teach arts integrated lessons that meet existing curriculum standards.

Meet our Teaching Artists

Get Inspired

Step inside a Creative School classroom

The Joy Journal
Medieval Confessional: Monologues from the Middle Ages
ISL Uptown, Arts Integration
Medieval Confessional: Monologues from the Middle Ages
ISL Uptown, Arts Integration

This year, 5th graders are studying the Middle Ages. In their eyes, this is truly ancient history. Sometimes it's a challenge to relate to anything that happened before you were born, and you’re left wondering why it is even relevant to learn. But the one thing that has never changed over thousands of years is human nature.

ISL Uptown, Arts Integration
Making Learning Visible: Comics in the Classroom
Example Content, Arts Integration, Esperanza, Esperanza Charter School, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art
Making Learning Visible: Comics in the Classroom
Example Content, Arts Integration, Esperanza, Esperanza Charter School, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art

Ms. Jones’s 4th-grade ELA students transformed the short story "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury into a comic. The objective was to show as a six-panel comic an important moment in the science-fiction tale, when the sun finally comes out for one hour after seven years of rainstorms.

Example Content, Arts Integration, Esperanza, Esperanza Charter School, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art
Anticipate and Reduce Barriers
Disability Justice, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art
Anticipate and Reduce Barriers
Disability Justice, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art

One of the most influential things I did in preparation for this school year was read Liz Byron’s Art for All: Planning for Variability in the Visual Arts Classroom. It’s an incredibly short & digestible book that provides classroom-ready advice on how teachers can transform their practice in sustainable ways with Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Disability Justice, SEL, Academics, Life Skills & Visual Art
Making Connections: Food Webs & Abstract Art Prints!
ReNEW Therapeutic
Making Connections: Food Webs & Abstract Art Prints!
ReNEW Therapeutic

See how students at RTP combined science and art to explore food webs through abstract prints! See how this arts-integrated approach makes learning about ecosystems engaging and meaningful.

ReNEW Therapeutic
Connecting Cultures: Ancient Art in the Classroom
Hynes UNO
Connecting Cultures: Ancient Art in the Classroom
Hynes UNO

See how students at Hynes UNO brought ancient cultures to life through hands-on art projects! Through 'rock carvings' and the design of Greek vases, they connected deeply with their history lessons.

Hynes UNO
Cultural Relevance: Self-Discovery through Mask Making
The NET Central City
Cultural Relevance: Self-Discovery through Mask Making
The NET Central City

Discover how students at The NET Central City are exploring cultural relevance and self-discovery through Mardi Gras mask making. Learn how they draw inspiration from Black Masking Indians and create art with intention and meaning!

The NET Central City