ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM
Leap’s flagship program for grades K-8 increases equitable access to high-quality, equity-focused, multidisciplinary arts education. In-school artist residencies use culturally attuned content and practices to engage diverse students and optimize success. Depending on grade and discipline, residencies lasts 6-20 weeks, usually one hour per week.

Evolving since 1979, Leap’s program is unique in that:
– Our teaching framework emphasizes equity-focused Culturally Responsive Teaching and Creative Youth Development approaches, using the arts to foster inclusion, positive relationships, confidence, resiliency, community engagement, and self-efficacy in young people.
– Residencies are taught by Teaching Artists (TAs) with artistic expertise and with an average of 8 years of classroom experience.
– Programs progress grade to grade, often taught by the same TA, supporting deep, lasting student-adult relationships.
– TA Professional Development focuses on Creative Youth Development, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Implicit Bias, Self Awareness, Trauma-Informed Teaching, Educational Equity, and Intersectional Identities (since 2016).
– Seven disciplines – ceramics, two-dimensional art, music, dance, theater, architecture, and creative writing – provide choices for schools.
– Long-term partnerships with schools and TAs achieve a 90% average school retention rate.

Leap participants develop technical discipline-specific skills, integrate arts learning with other academic subjects. make positive connections, practice and strengthen skills in critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving. TAs create an environment in which students feel safe and supported to create art with their inherent talents, unique perspectives, and life experiences.

More important than gaining specific art skills, students’ perspectives dramatically shift. They develop tools to think critically, collaborate, create, communicate, and connect with others—21st century skills that strengthen communities.

EQUITY TRAINING INITIATIVE
Leap launched its Racial Justice Training Institute (RJTI) to transform Bay Area art education, leading to equity-driven, student-centered, culturally responsive arts education, greater student outcomes, and a community of knowledgeable, equity-driven practitioners and influencers.