North Adams Public Schools Art Teacher Wins Award
 |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — This fall, the North Adams Public Schools (NAPS) District Arts Integration Specialist, Leslie Appleget, won the 2023 Outstanding Community Arts Education Collaborative Multidisciplinary Award from stateside arts collaborative Arts|Learning.
The award was conferred at Arts|Learning's 36th Annual Champions of Arts Education Advocacy Awards in November at Boston Renaissance Charter School. Appleget is the only award recipient in the 2023 award cohort to represent arts education work based in Berkshire County.
According to a press release, this award recognizes arts educators who have developed a model of arts education collaborative between school and community cultural resources. Recipients demonstrate excellence in leadership in promoting arts education and building community support beyond the classroom, collaborative programming between cultural institutions and schools, exemplary teaching and programming in the arts, and addressing the cultural and arts education needs of the community.
"Leslie is dedicated to incorporating the arts into our curriculum and has not only enriched the educational experience for our students, but has also inspired her colleagues to creatively adapt traditional lessons to engage students in learning through the arts," said Kimberlee Chappell, District Literacy Coordinator, of the district's art integration work.
North Adams Public Schools has been engaged in arts-integrated professional development and pedagogy in the district since 2017, beginning with a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to provide professional development in arts education and arts integration for educators, for which Appleget was the project manager. In alignment with the Berkshire Blueprint for Arts Integration and Education, NAPS implemented a district-wide arts integration effort through curriculum development and partnership with community arts organizations in 2022, with a focus on integrating the arts to deepen students' social-emotional learning skills as well as deepen rigor in teaching and learning.
Arts|Learning is the Massachusetts arts education alliance partnering with dozens of professional arts education organizations, cultural institutions, and public agencies to bring about changes in the way the arts are viewed and supported within public education.
Tags: award, NAPS,
