Florida Alliance for Arts Education

FAAE Leadership Summit: Annual convening of stakeholders in education: teachers, administrators, parents, elected representatives and other policy makers.  Speakers of regional and national importance inspire and challenge attendees. Bringing in outside experts provides benchmarks against which to compare Florida programs. 

Bringing representatives of the many stakeholder groups to a single conference, helps to move outside our silos of interest and find common ground from which to support educational opportunities for all of Florida students. 

A legislative panel will examine the status of Florida legislative policy and breakout sessions will offer the latest research findings, model programs as well as practical tools for developing community outreach, arts education, and arts integration.

The Florida Alliance for Arts Education will offer Arts Integration Symposia Series throughout Florida.  Symposia will be provided under the auspices of the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs as a step toward accomplishing the Arts Education goals set forth in its recent Strategic Plan:  Culture Builds Florida’s Future.

The purpose of the AI Symposia Series is two-fold:  1) to build awareness of what arts integration IS and can accomplish within a school and community and; 2) to spotlight outstanding arts integration programs already in existence in Florida Schools.  Each Symposium will be feature local programs and presenters as well as national and state-wide findings and models.

Arts Integration is an approach to teaching and learning in which authentic connections between the arts and other aspects of the curriculum are made in order to achieve desired learning outcomes (goals/objectives) in both subject areas.

The symposia series will be used as resource for designing arts integration teacher workshops in the future.

FAAE Leadership awards recognize Florida’s distinguished leaders in arts education in the following categories:
Arts Education Professional - recognition for leadership in advocacy and/or public awareness related to ensuring the role of arts education in basic education. Business Leader - This award will honor a business or an individual businessperson for leadership in, and support of, arts education. Outstanding partnership efforts; local and/or statewide advocacy for arts education; local Network Partner coalition support; and/or financial support of arts education will be recognized through this award. Community Volunteer - an individual who has provided significant support to arts education in Florida schools and communities. Work with schools, non-profit arts education programs, and/or Network Partnership. Legislative Leader - recognition for a member of the Florida Legislature who provides related to ensuring the role of arts education as part of a basic education for all children in Florida’s schools and communities. School Administrator - recognition for an administrator in a Florida school who provides leadership in advocacy and/or public awareness related to ensuring the role of arts education in basic education. Superintendent Award - recognizes the impact that strong leadership from a superintendent can have in developing and maintaining strong arts education programs in a school district. School Board Award - recognizes a Florida school board that has implemented and sustained exemplary arts education programs that provide a creative learning environment for outstanding student achievement. The Florida award-winning school board may serve as the Florida nominee for the National Award presented by the KCAAEN and NSBA. School Boards compete for this award through an application process.

The Florida Department of Education supports a complete and comprehensive education that includes dance, music, theater, and visual arts for all Florida students. The Advancing Arts Education (AAE) program recognizes schools with underserved/emerging arts programs who desire to develop or enhance their programs. One school will be selected from each of the three regions of Florida: North, Central, and South. As an AAE School, you will have the opportunity to collaborate with an expert consultant(s) in the field of arts and arts integration techniques in developing a plan designed to develop or enhance an arts program in your school. AAE Schools will have the opportunity to collaborate with an expert consultant(s) in the field of arts and arts integration techniques in developing a plan designed to develop or enhance an arts program in dance, music, theatre, or visual arts.

CPALMS for Arts




FAAE is working with arts education experts to oversee the creation of high-quality arts lesson plans and resources for use in K-12 dance, music, theatre, and visual art instruction throughout Florida’s schools. Once complete, these items will be available to all Florida teachers on the CPALMS web site. The Arts for a Complete Education Collection of Lesson Plans and Resources for use by educators, students, and families at the CPALMS website are exclusively written and vetted by educators and administrators in arts education by the FAAE. The ACE Collection is the sole resource for instructional lesson plans and resources for all grades and all courses in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts.

Careers in the Arts Workshop Series
The Florida Alliance for Arts Education partners with Florida Colleges and Universities and professionals in the fields of Fine and Performing Arts and Entertainment to host an annual free workshop designed to inspire and guide middle and high school students in the pursuit of creative careers. Workshop sessions are recorded and archived as a web resource for use by all student, families, and educators in the state.

Artist Residency Program (Arts Integration) – specifically for Rural Economically Disadvantaged Initiative (REDI) county and/or communities.
FLORIDA ALLIANCE FOR ARTS EDUCATION: NEA/FDCA ARTIST RESIDENCY GRANT 2018-19
The Florida Alliance for Arts Education (FAAE) through a grant from National Endowment for the Arts via the Florida Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs to implement an artist residency program that will support the Florida Campaign for Grade Level Reading in four (4) REDI/underserved communities in Palm Beach County: Belle Glade; Pahokee; South Bay; and Canal Point. These communities have a total of 35 early learning providers who serve over 1,000 children, caregivers, and families. They include the traditional preschool setting as well as home-based, migrant, and faith-based. Providers and their educators will work with Master Teaching Artists and receive professional development and in-classroom modeling; students will receive hands on learning experiences; and caregivers and families will be provided with resources and experiences in building literacy through the arts with their children.

STAR: State Teacher/Artist Residency
a cooperative program of the Florida Alliance for Arts Education and the Hermitage Artist Retreat

The State of Florida is filled with talented, dedicated artists who are also talented and dedicated, certified full time public school teachers. The lives of these particular people are spent trying to balance the challenge of expressing their artistic selves while pursuing their profession as a public school educator.

The STAR program is designed to honor and nourish the artist in the educator by providing five public school educators from Florida with the opportunity to pursue their artistic work in the inspiring environment of the prestigious Hermitage Artist Retreat. Three-week residencies will be offered to two visual artists, two writers (fiction/non-fiction/poetry/playwriting), and one composer.

A Hermitage residency is a gift of time and space for artists to attend to their work. There is no requirement to produce. It is intensely personal time for concentration AND a community of artists from different disciplines with which to share and learn. Artists invited seize the opportunity and find themselves more productive than at any other time in their creative lives.

The Florida Center for Partnerships for Arts Integrated Teaching (PAInT) and The Florida Alliance for Arts Education (FAAE) recognize the need to provide professional development opportunities in arts integration to teachers, administrators, and teaching artists throughout the state of Florida.

As part of a collaborative mission, the Center for PAInT at the University of South Florida and the Florida Alliance for Arts Education (FAAE) are partnering to provide these professional development opportunities. Partners include, but are not limited to, The Cultural Division of Broward County, the Broward Center for Arts Integration Learning, and The Center for Early Learning; Cathedral Arts Project and Duval County School District; Hillsborough County Public Schools; Lee County Schools; The Council on Culture & Arts in Tallahassee/Leon County (COCA) and Leon County Schools; The Center for PAInT, University of South Florida – Sarasota/Manatee, and the School District of Manatee County.

The FAAE will facilitate six (6) 3-hour professional development opportunities in six Florida school districts: Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Lee, Leon, and Manatee. The preferred target audience in this case would be non-arts classroom teachers (i.e., math, social studies, PE, science, language arts, etc.).

Teaching Artists will provide arts integration techniques for classroom teachers. These techniques are instrumental in achieving better results in other areas of academic pursuit. Incorporating the arts (art, music, drama, and dance) into other subject matter areas accelerates and facilitates the learning process and promotes creative thinking (Kindler, 1987).