* SALT (Schools and Artists as Learning Teams) Grant Program

Schools and Artists as Learning Teams (SALT) is a professional development grant program that supports and strengthens partnerships between schools, community arts organizations and artists. Through thoughtful collaboration, teachers and artists create opportunities for success so that all students achieve to high standards. The grant can be renewed for up to three years, dependent on legislative funding, which allows the opportunity to stretch and explore what it means to work collaboratively.

SALT Grant Program Time Frame/Deadlines
Application deadline: Applications must be submitted by August 1, 2008.
Notification: All applicants will be notified of funding status September 1, 2008.
Grant period: Grants begin on September 17, 2008 and end by June 30, 2009.

How to Apply:

1. Thoroughly review the SALT Guidelines and general NDCA guidelines.
    
2. Complete the application through NDCA's new online grant system available at: http://northdakota.cgweb.org, review the application instructions and enter your profile information, if you have not yet done so (you only need to enter your profile information one time). Then click on "Current Programs & Applications" to access the Special Projects grant.
    
3. Mail the required materials by the postmark deadline date to:
   (Be sure to mail in your signed "Grant Application" page along with the "Preliminary Signatures of Agreement" form and any additional materials you are unable to upload.)
   
   North Dakota Council on the Arts
   1600 East Century Avenue, Suite 6
   Bismarck, ND 58503

07-08, Bismarck SALT PowerPoint Presentation (in PDF Format) - Riverside Elementary and Roosevelt Elementary 2007-2008 Final Reflection

07-08, Jamestown SALT PowerPoint Presentation (in PDF format) - Jamestown Arts Center and Gussner Elementary, Creative Writing, Book Making 2007-2008 Final Reflection

06-07, Bismarck SALT PowerPoint Presentation (in PDF format) - Riverside Elementary and Roosevelt Elementary 2006-2007 Final Reflection

06-07, Jamestown SALT PowerPoint Presentation (in PDF format) - Jamestown Arts Center and Gussner Elementary, Creative Writing, Book Making 2006-2007 Final Reflection

Perpich Center for Arts Education’s Artful Online: Professional Development for Teachers and Teaching Artists - “Resources to help ALL students achieve high academic standards in and through the arts.”

What is SALT?

All students achieve to high standards
SALT is Schools and Artists as Learning Teams, a statewide professional development grant program for pre-K-12 schools and their arts partners that supports and strengthens partnerships between North Dakota schools, artists, and community arts organizations.  Schools and their arts partners develop long-term partnerships that build the capacity of the school and the arts partner to provide meaningful learning experiences in and through the arts to improve student achievement.

SALT provides practical tools and research-based, high quality professional development for North Dakota teachers and artists to help their students:

• Foster deep and personal understandings of standards-based math, science, social studies, language arts and fine arts.
• Develop critical thinking skills.
• Cultivate life-long habits of mind.
• Develop powerfully articulate voices for expression.

Working Collaboratively
Collaboration lives at the heart of SALT. Teams must be willing to work collaboratively in a process of development and change over the duration of the grant. Teams include the North Dakota teaching artist or artists, all participating teachers, and any representatives from a participating arts organization.  Teams also include a peer coach who is assigned to each team by the program at the start of the grant period. Peer coaches are teachers and artists who have worked in schools and arts organizations and as independent artists; they have rich and varied experience in supporting collaborative partnerships.

• Teams of at least two North Dakota teachers and at least one North Dakota artist from the North Dakota Council on the Arts Artist in Residence roster - a community arts organization is also encouraged to be in involved – apply to SALT for a professional grant of $5000 to build their capacity to better reach all students.
• Teams create connections between arts specialists, artists and general classroom teachers.
• Teams grow out of prior experience of working together – an artist residency, performance or workshop – with the goal of developing a long term partnership.
• Teachers and artists collaboratively plan, teach and assess arts-infused, interdisciplinary curricula that address state and national standards.
• With the support of peer coaches assigned by the program, SALT teams deepen their work by embracing the concept of “critical friends” – professionals who engage in professional discussion and collaborative inquiry as part of a continuous improvement model.

Understanding What Matters and Teaching What Matters
When teachers and arts partners focus on the question: “What do we want students to understand?” they are better able to plan and implement a project that leads students to think deeply about complex ideas. During initial planning, teams uncover what matters to them and to students about their topic and arts discipline. As teams refine their project they begin to articulate what matters and determine the topic or big idea that will be used to create an inquiry-based classroom that uses the arts to provide students with multiple points of entry.

SALT asks questions to help teams choose their topic (Big Idea) and open their inquiry. 

• What are your students’ strengths? What are the gaps in your students’ understandings? How will you articulate the “big idea”?  Using district, state and national standards as guides, identify a topic in a way that makes it matter to you and your students. It must have the potential to grab students’ interest and compel them to learn to do hard, complex work.  It may rise out of one of your current misunderstandings.
• What inquiry questions will invite you, the teacher and artist, and your students to care about this topic?  Ask students big questions to which you have no ready answer.  Challenge students to seek out answers for themselves.  Spark their imagination.
• What learning goals do you want students to understand?  Think about what students already understand.  How will the project lean students to think and apply knowledge in new ways?

If You Believe ALL Students Can Succeed and:

• Want to improve your ability to design in-depth, focused, quality learning experiences for students in and through the arts.
• Have worked together in the past and want to deepen your partnership with a school or artist or arts organization.
• Want to take advantage of significant professional development that is tailored to your needs.

And You are Willing to:

• identify student strengths and needs and collaboratively address these needs;
• work collaboratively in a process of development and change over the duration of the grant—using artful teaching and learning tools and strategies to plan, implement, and reflect on your project;
• go beyond the artist residency model and start exploring collaborative ways to work in the classroom;
• include your peer coach in functions of the project at your site (for instance, participating in planning meetings, doing a observing a classroom observation activity, attending an exhibit or performance, or facilitating a reflection session.);
• routinely document, assess, and communicate your work, including completion of a final report;
• compensate your artists for planning and reflection time

 then we would like to invite you to be a partner in this program!

Program Guidelines and Frequently Asked Questions

*SALT models the Minnesota Arts & Schools as Partners (ASAP) grant program which is part of the Perpich Center’s Minnesota Arts Education. Network

Assistance

Contact the Arts in Education Director at lehreth@nd.gov or 701-328-7593 with any questions.