The goal of Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) is to raise student achievement for at-risk students by actively supporting and positively engaging students through integrated arts programming and strengthening arts instruction. Over the past three years, OMA has helped transform three impoverished Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) elementary schools into creative, stimulating, positive and productive learning environments. Our success in improving teacher effectiveness and enhancing student achievement through OMA has put a national spotlight on TUSD and OMA project. A demand has been created for our professional development (PD) services and materials. 

At this time, it has become evident that while our PD model appears to have been the basis for the documented successes of OMA, the actual design has not been evaluated nor broadly delivered. We propose a three-year project that will focus on refining, packaging, and delivering the OMA PD model through an intense evaluation process. We will target the teachers from three of our lowest achieving schools (Cavett, Davidson, and Roberts Elementaries) to receive full services for the entire project. PD activities for classroom teachers, OMA arts integration specialists, principals, and teaching artists will include the Fine Arts Summer Institute (FASI), OMA Artist/Teacher Seminar, and quarterly PD meetings throughout the school year. 

The OMA PD model will provide experience in constructing arts integrated lesson plans and appropriate delivery of those plans, effective collaboration with professional artists and arts organizations to strengthen lessons, and appropriate performance opportunities for students in grades K-8. The most significant impact of this project is the systemic change of classroom instruction to improve student achievement.