Earlier this summer, Young Audiences Arts for Learning National Executive Director David A. Dik joined school leaders and affiliate colleagues for the 20th annual Foundational Seminar in Buford, Georgia. Facilitated by our Atlanta-based affiliate, ArtsNOW, the three-day event brought together education professionals from Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana to explore how arts integration can strengthen teaching and learning across content areas.
The Foundational Seminar is ArtsNOW’s flagship professional learning experience for school administrators, arts educators, and classroom teachers. Through hands-on sessions in all arts disciplines, participants experience research-based, standards-aligned strategies they can take directly back to their classrooms.
This year’s seminar was particularly meaningful for the Young Audiences Arts for Learning network as teams from Young Audiences of Louisiana (YALA) participated alongside ArtsNOW educators in preparation for the launch of Educational Advancement through STEM Engagement (EASE). EASE is a five-year national initiative led by Young Audiences Arts for Learning in partnership with ArtsNOW and YALA, designed to improve K-5 math and science achievement through arts-integrated STEM learning.
The seminar offered a powerful example of the collaborative learning at the heart of EASE. YALA brought an 11-person team of administrators and math teachers from its partner school, Dolores T. Aaron Academy, to the seminar. The team participated in sessions exploring how arts integration can be embedded into core academic instruction while gaining valuable insight into ArtsNOW’s established professional learning model.
The 2026 Foundational Seminar served 324 educators representing 51 schools and 21 districts in Georgia and South Carolina. For those involved with the EASE initiative, the experience provided both practical strategies for the upcoming school year and a valuable opportunity to learn from a successful professional development model already operating within the YA network.
As a national initiative, EASE will provide participating educators with multi-year professional development, including summer institutes and in-class modeling led by arts consultants. School leaders will also receive training to help sustain arts-integrated instruction over time. Across its five-year project period, EASE will serve more than 5,700 students through arts-integrated units aligned with state standards in math, science, and the arts.
EASE is funded through an Early-Phase Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The project will include both a feasibility study and a subsequent impact study examining student achievement, teacher engagement, and student participation.
