A|L in the News

Arts|Learning awarded major grant to plan two Boston Innovation Schools!

March 17, 2011

Arts|Learning is pleased that an innovation school prospectus to convert the Haynes Early Education Center and the Higgison-Lewis K-8 School (Roxbury section of Boston) into a new type of school in Massachusetts received initial approval in January from Dr. Carole Johnson, Superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, the Boston School Committee, and the Boston Teachers Union. Following this first step, Arts|Learning along with its partners (see below) then applied for two Innovation School Planning grants from the MA Executive Office of Education.  We are thrilled to report that we have received the two planning grants for the schools.  A news release about these grants may be seen here.

This culminates more than a year of work on the part of Cleopatra Knight-Wilkins, Senior Program Director of the Arts of the Boston Public Schools with the help of Arts|Learning personnel Jonathan Rappaport, Joseph Cronin, and Charles Combs; Valerie Gumes, principal of the Haynes EEC; Joy Salesman-Oliver, principal of the Higginson-Lewis School; Torri Canada and several members of the Marjorie Eloise Parks Music School planning group; Mary Epstein from the Kodály Music Institute of the New England Conservatory; and Corey Evans from the Boston Arts Academy.

Please read our prospectus summary for more information about the Arts Pathway these two schools will create.  Currently we are hoping to thoroughly plan the two schools and have them ready for re-opening as Innovation Schools by September, 2012.  Please click here to learn more about Innovation Schools compared with other types of autonomous or semi-autonomous schools in Massachusetts.