Crystal Bridges to team with 20 schools on arts

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will work with more than 20 schools over a multiyear period to determine the effect a sustained partnership could have on advancing education through the arts.

The school partnership program will be the first project supported as part of the Windgate Educational Excellence through the Arts Endowed Fund. The fund was created with a $15 million gift from the Windgate Charitable Foundation, which is based in Siloam Springs and focuses much of its mission on the development and support of the arts.

Anne Kraybill, Crystal Bridges’ director of education and research in learning, said the fund will provide the museum with an opportunity to identify solutions for problems schools face in educating students. It gives Crystal Bridges a chance to be “really responsive to the needs in K-12 education and create some room for experimentation.”

The project was selected by the Windgate advisory board, which was recently established to identify pressing challenges and programs to pursue. The board, which held its first meeting May 10, consists of advisers from around the country.

Kraybill said Crystal Bridges will partner with schools in urban, suburban and rural districts in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri as part of the initial project.

The three-year school partnership program will provide development for teachers, multiple field trips to Crystal Bridges and classroom residencies with teaching artists, according to information on the museum’s website.

“The hope is that the Windgate fund allows us to implement this and really kind of perfect it, then determine whether or not we continue to scale it and replicate it,” Kraybill said.