Press releases [Apr. 5, 2006A]

5 April 2006

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release Contact: J. James Public Information Officer 404-685-2784 jjames@gaarts.org

NEW FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES ANNOUNCED
Grants to Assist Educators with Arts-Education Activities
ATLANTA Two new grants are available from the Georgia Council for the Arts to encourage arts-interaction training for teachers and arts education for students: the Teacher Professional Learning Grant and the Parents, Teachers and Artists Grant. The grants will allow educators, students and parents to participate in arts-themed activities that also encourage learning. While it is widely accepted that parental involvement has a positive impact on a child's success in school, research also demonstrates that students attain higher levels of achievement through engagement in the arts and through arts integration. GCA seeks to support these findings by encouraging these patterns.
Parents, Teachers & Artists Grant Parents, Teachers and Artists are the target of one of the new funding initiatives. In fact, the grant shares a name with its audience. The Parents, Teachers & Artists (PTA) Grant has been developed as a collaboration between partnering organizations and schools to encourage arts education activities in schools throughout the state. With four objectives, the grant seeks to provide funding to engage students more successfully in learning, while also engaging their families in hands-on activities that will
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connect them to their community's cultural amenities thereby increasing the potential and capacity for learning.
Applicants must be a K-5 public, private, or parochial school that has scheduled the activities for either after school or weekend programs. The PTA Grant is for up to $3,000 and requires a one-third match. The matching funds may come from the school's discretionary accounts or from donations made by community-based entities or individuals. Grant funds may be used for art materials, tickets to arts events and transportation costs among other support expenditures.
Teacher Professional Learning Grant The Teacher Professional Learning (TPL) Grant is designed to fund professional development activities for Georgia K-12 teachers and professional staff in curriculumbased arts integration, which is training in the use of the arts as a teaching tool in the instruction of other academic subjects. There are two types of TPL Grant: Teacher-toProvider and Provider-to-School. To apply for funding the applicant must be:
Any certified K-12 Georgia teacher or professional staff registering for and arts integration program at an approved Georgia nonprofit arts organization that specializes in a single discipline.
Any K-12 Georgia school contracting with an approved Georgia nonprofit, single discipline arts organization to provide arts integration training at its facility.
Both grants have a May 31, 2006 deadline. It is anticipated that the awards will be announced no later than the first of August. More information and specific details, including guidelines and applications for both grants are available on the GCA Web site at (www.gaarts.org).
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Arts Education Grants/Page 3 The Georgia Council for the Arts is a state agency that provides support for
nonprofit arts and cultural organizations throughout the state. Established in 1965 as the Georgia Commission on the Arts, the Georgia Council for the Arts mission is to encourage excellence in the arts, support the arts many forms of expression and make the arts available to all Georgians by providing funding, leadership, programming and other services. Funding for the Georgia Council for the Arts is provided by the Georgia General Assembly, the National Endowment for the Arts and other private and public sources.
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