Our History
Vallejo Teaching Artists (VTA) began at Vallejo Charter School (VCS), a dependent charter school. It was created by parents interested in expanding the educational opportunities for children in Vallejo. The school adopted a project-based learning model in partnership with EL Education. As a part of this curriculum, art plays an important and integrative role. School administration worked hard to find and bring professional artists into the school to enrich the learning community. Initially, the artists offered dance and visual art, but the program soon grew! The teaching artists offered students visual art, dance, music, creative writing, cinematography, graphic design, and theatre lessons. They gave students opportunities to experiment with mediums, express their artistic voices, share their work with authentic audiences and connect to their academic work in a meaningful way.
Mission
The mission of Vallejo Teaching Artists is to provide safe and supportive spaces for the youth of Vallejo to develop and share their artistic craft, to express their creative voice with confidence, and to influence the landscape of social justice. We value its purpose for the important impact youth have on humanity. We are committed to empowering youth to create artistic works that represent, honor and celebrate the diversity of our social and cultural differences. We are dedicated to building visual and performance literacy that supports academic, social and emotional learning toward reaching individual potential.
Vision
Vallejo Teaching Artists envision equitable art spaces that support, guide, and advocate for youth artistic expression and growth. We encourage youth to be socially responsible by building empathy, empowerment and perseverance. We create high-quality, meaningful curricula that integrate creative practice with standard-based content. We thoughtfully collaborate with educators to help facilitate student access to educational outcomes and academic standards, using the arts as a medium. We believe that the arts should be embraced as essential to the holistic development of each person.
Goals
- Empowering youth to share their stories and express their beliefs freely, and with powerful effectiveness, through music, dance, visual arts, theater and new media to authentic audiences of their peers, their families and community members.
- Facilitating Arts-centered integration that improves student engagement, comprehension, and performance across subject areas.
- Creating youth-based spaces for the Performing and Visual Arts, i.e. an art gallery, dance studios, and theaters.
- Offering school site performances from Bay Area artists & arts organizations.
- Developing the VTA Internship Program – a program for professional artists who aspire to be a teaching artist by providing professional development that connects the skills of their art forms with effective engagement in their teaching.
- Building positive partnerships with arts organizations both locally and globally.
- Continuing and developing the VTA Summer Studio – a program that creates an opportunity for students to immerse themselves in their artistic practice and craft.
- Promoting Public Visual and Performance art opportunities for students to exhibit their work to our local community and beyond; promoting discovery, discourse and mutual understanding.
Our Board of Directors
President – Jill Foltz-Santos
Vice President – Carmen White
Secretary Treasurer – Andrea Raynor
Executive Director
Fred Barrett
Board Meetings
Quarterly Board Meetings occur on the second Tuesdays of the following months from 6:00-7:00pm., March, June, September, December.