NAEA Town Hall: Connected Arts Networks (CAN) Professional Learning Communities Recruitment

Connected Arts Networks (CAN) Professional Learning Communities Recruitment

September 26, 2023

Access the recording here.

Download the slide presentation here.

View CAN Recruitment FAQ here.

Are you interested in furthering your instructional capacity to serve each unique students’ needs, or leveraging the arts in your school for greater impact? If so, join us for the Connected Arts Networks (CAN) Town Hall!

CAN is a multi-year grant initiative creating nationwide virtual Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) with educators in visual/media arts, music, theatre, and dance. CAN’s purpose is to build a sustainable model of professional learning for arts educators in public schools and public charters to strengthen their pedagogy, instruction, and leadership skills to better serve students.

In fall of 2023, we are recruiting up to 600 arts educators (150 educators per art form) to serve as PLC participants! These PLCs will meet virtually each month of the school year from January of 2024 through June of 2026 with a primary focus on professional learning in the areas of equity, diversity and inclusion; social–emotional learning; and teacher leadership through standards-based arts instruction.

At this Town Hall, you will hear from current CAN Teacher Leaders in each art form who are part of the inaugural cohort, in addition to learning more about the program, benefits, and how to apply!

This program is a partnership between the New York City Department of Education’s Arts Office, the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO), the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and the National Art Education Association (NAEA).

Program activities for this project are fully funded through the U.S. Department of Education’s Assistance for Arts Education Program for a total of five years.

Panelists

Nathan Rødahl
Director of Orchestras, Port Angeles High School, Port Angeles, WA; Music Director, Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestra, Bainbridge Island, WA
National Association for Music Education (NAfME)

Nathan Rødahl is an immerging orchestra educator and conductor in the Pacific Northwest. Nathan is dedicated to advancing creative reinventions of orchestra education and pedagogy to broaden its access to students who are historically disenfranchised, as well as to those where access is diminishing in historically robust music communities. In addition, Nathan is the director of orchestras at Port Angeles High School in Port Angeles, Washington, and music director of the Bainbridge Island Youth Orchestra in Bainbridge Island. As a member of NAfME’s National Council for Orchestra Education and Pedagogy and with NAfME’s Teacher Leader Cohort in the Connected Arts Networks, Nathan has taken the opportunity to influence policy and inspire fellow educators in bringing more music to more students. He has also published articles and opinion pieces for NAfME’s Teaching Music magazine, and he is also a recurring speaker at NAfME conferences on the topics of social–emotional learning; diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; culturally responsive teaching; and contemporary issues in repertoire and rehearsal in the orchestra classroom.

Raine Dawn Valentine
Art Educator, Rigley Middle School, Baltimore, MD
National Art Education Association (NAEA)

Raine Dawn Valentine has been teaching choice-based art education at Ridgely Middle School in Baltimore County Public Schools, Maryland, for 16 years, and she is also an associate professor at Notre Dame of Maryland University. As a member of the Turtle Mountain Tribe of Chippewa in North Dakota, Raine is rooted in her heritage.

Kristie L. Farr
Theatre Educator, Indian River High School, Philadelphia, NY
Educational Theatre Association (EdTA)

Kristie is an award-winning theatre teacher from Indian River High School in Philadelphia, New York. Several of her productions have received Awards of Excellence in Directing from the Theatre Association of New York State. Some of her favorite directing credits include 26 Pebbles, Who Will Carry the Word, The Yellow Boat, Bocón, And a Child Shall Lead, The Women of Lockerbie, Almost Maine, and The Laramie Project. Her theatre program was recognized as the EdTA Outstanding School in 2007, she was awarded the National Reba R. Robertson Award for Outstanding Theatre Teacher in 2012, and she received the NYSTEA Rod Marriott Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Kristie was also thrilled to have been a part of the American High School Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2013. For over 25 years, Kristie has served as NYSTEA’s curriculum chair, and she has been an advocate and supporter for theatre standards revision, curriculum development, assessment, and certification. She has been part of EdTA’s SEL Lesson Plan and Model Curriculum projects, and she currently serves as a theatre Teacher Leader for the Connected Arts Network PLC. She has also recently published her first book: Drama Mama: Lessons Learned in the Imaginary Elsewhere!

Ashley Cartledge
Dance Educator, Greenville, NC
National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)

Ashley Cartledge is the dance educator at North Pitt High School, a rural Title I school located in Bethel, North Carolina, where she has taught for the past 12 years. Ashley began her dance training at The Davis Center in Washington, DC, and continued training at Dance Place, DC Dance Collective, Joy of Motion, and Maryland Youth Ballet. She received both her BFA and MA in dance education from East Carolina University (ECU) and the University of North Carolina–Greensboro. In 2010, Ashley served as resident choreographer for The Distillery, a former arts collective in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 2012 and 2013, she served on the committee to write the Pitt County dance curriculum and pacing guides, and from 2016 to 2019, she collaborated with the dance education coordinator at ECU in a service-learning project offering students engaging lessons while also incorporating literacy and social issues. In 2017, Ashley began a workshop called “empowHERment,” which is an intergenerational workshop for female students and their role models that incorporates somatics and modern-based movement practices.

Ashley also specializes in modern technique and has training in ballet, contemporary, jazz, Indian, and Middle Eastern dance forms. In addition to teaching, she also serves on the board of the North Carolina Dance Education Organization as President-Elect, and she is a certified teacher of BodyMind Dancing.