Children's Theatre Company Long-Term Partnership With Bethune Arts Elementary School Shows Positive Impact on Students

In the fall of 2021, Bethune Arts Elementary School and Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) began a partnership with the objective of providing quality arts programming at every grade level.

This partnership is a multi-year plan that provides programming across all grade levels and includes in-school residencies, professional development for teachers, and family engagement activities.

The partnership is overseen by Ann Joseph-Douglas, Director of Education at Children’s Theatre Company. Through this partnership, and in all CTC’s educational and community programs, CTC endeavors to make the Twin Cities a wonderful, safe, and culturally-rich community in which children can grow up, and to nurture the development of children’s resiliency and readiness to experience the world.

“The collaboration between CTC and Bethune and Minnesota Public Schools has been fantastic,” said Ann Joseph-Douglas. “Since day one, the classroom teachers have been incredibly gracious and supportive to our education team. The ongoing communication between all stakeholders has been the key to the success in the classroom and beyond. It is inspiring to know how much the staff at Bethune care for the families, and work tirelessly to ensure that Bethune is not just a school but a thriving community. Having the opportunity to engage with families has been the highlight of this partnership. It is one thing to be in the classroom, but having those connections with caregivers signals that education extends beyond the classroom, and that teachers, families and community members are there to always support student achievement. In addition, the office of Extended Learning has been critical in supporting our efforts to provide arts leaning opportunities for the summer scholars program in 2024. In depth programming like this would not be possible without the total buy-in from the school to the district.”   

A recent evaluation of the partnership, by Wilder Research in collaboration with CTC, highlighted the positive impact for Bethune students who participated in the program. Some key takeaways include:

• 97% of the surveyed caregivers noted that their child looks forward to arts and theater programming at Bethune, that Bethune’s school-based arts and theater programming is beneficial for their child, and that arts and theater programming helps develop their child’s social-emotional skills.
   
• Student improvement was seen across social-emotional measures such as social awareness, executive functioning, and emotional literacy, as well as across the fundaments of writing and storytelling like organization and mechanics.
   
• Students in grades 3 and 4 showed an increase in their writing and storytelling skills over the course of programming. Overall average scores increased by 2.25 points from the first grading in December to the fourth and final grading in May.

“Our partnership with CTC and all the grade level residencies has been more powerful and impactful than any other that we have worked with,” said Jody Lazo, Arts Integration Magnet Specialist. “Education is challenging and reaching students’ needs is a huge task. The support of CTC is invaluable as they work with our teachers and students to address specific needs and use theater arts to elevate our work in a way that we could never do independently. The depth and investment of this partnership is what makes is so successful.” 

Bethune Arts Elementary in the Heritage Park neighborhood of Minneapolis is a Turnaround Arts magnet school. Turnaround Arts is a national school improvement program that was created in 2011. Turnaround Arts is rooted in the principle that integrated arts education help transform schools facing some of the toughest educational challenges in the country. An initial three-year program evaluation of the Turnaround Arts pilot schools, released in 2015 highlights significant improvement in academic achievement, reduction in disciplinary referrals, and increases in attendance.

Turnaround Arts, a program of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, is based on the premise that high-quality, integrated arts education can help transform schools facing some of the toughest educational challenges in the country. Turnaround Arts: Minnesota began working with schools identified for support and improvement in Minnesota in 2014 and is administered by the Minnesota Department of Education.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, Minnesota’s achievement gap is one of largest in the nation. On average the Minnesota schools rank high on standardized tests and graduation rates. However, there are still huge disparities, with some of the largest achievement gaps by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

Children’s Theatre Company is committed to supporting Minnesota students and families by providing educational programs that address the resource gap and support student achievement. Children’s Theatre servers nearly 250,000 students and families through its productions, classes, camps, and school partnerships. However, CTC recognizes that there is still more to be done to support all students regardless of background and socioeconomic status. 

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