About the Collaborative
The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa is home to the West Alabama Arts Education Collaborative, a project of Amp Up Arts.
Amp Up Arts is a statewide 501(c)3 nonprofit arts education organization with a strong commitment to promoting increased access to arts education and fostering artistic talents in our communities. Amp Up Arts believes in equitable arts access for all Alabama students through art teachers, teaching artists, and arts organization partnerships.
We focus on statewide development of arts education for preK-12 schools through networking, advocacy, and professional development, and we support local collaborative sites statewide. We believe in empowering communities to use their local resources and knowledge to create sustainable arts education that is specific to the local culture and needs.
Amp Up Arts is made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. As a state partner of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, Amp Up Arts is eternally grateful for the support, guidance, and resources provided by the staff and council members, who are invaluable to our mission and work.
Currently, less than 40% of school systems across the state of Alabama offer arts education programming, with rural communities impacted the most.
A leadership team of arts, education, business and community leaders from across the state worked for three years to create the Alabama Plan for Arts Education. The plan was accepted by the State Board of Education in March 2016. In 2018, the Alabama State Legislature approved $400,000 in new funding for the Alabama State Council on the Arts to launch three pilot Regional Arts Education Collaboratives.
In addition to Tuscaloosa, other collaboratives are strategically located in Huntsville, Birmingham, Andalusia, Mobile, and Troy. The shared goals for the collaboratives are to provide regional arts education inventories as well as professional development for teachers, artists and arts organizations in arts integration.