In the Summer 2009 CAPE Communiqué:				CAPE's Mission CAPE advances the arts as a vital strategy for improving teaching and learning by increasing students' capacity for academic success, critical thinking and creativity. CAPE's Vision CAPE works toward a future in which: • students are valued as creators of culture in our society; • teachers, artists and students work collaboratively to develop and share innovative approaches to teaching and learning in and through the arts in our public schools; • teachers, artists, school administrators and parents recognize the arts as a key element in transforming schools into vibrant, creative and successful learning communities; • professional colleagues and partners regularly communicate and share their practices and research in order to continually improve and evolve the field of arts in education; and • policy makers, business leaders and all citizens value the arts in education as essential to a just and equal society, a thriving economy and an inclusive democratic culture. Board of Directors Mel Smith, President Paula S. Carlin, Vice Pres. P. Loreen Mershimer,    Treasurer Jeffrey A. Byrnes, Secretary Richard M. Assmus Frank Baiocchi Christine K. Buck Phil Cote Dawnmarie Domingo Carol P. Eastin Sean D. Egan, Ph.D. Nancy Jones Emrich Stephen Flisk Kurt Johnson Kylie M. Sorden Beth Swanson Phillip Thomas Bill Tuggle Jan Woelffer Donate to CAPE With your financial support, CAPE can bring its extraordinary teaching and learning philosophies and methods to educators and children throughout Chicago. Your gift will enable CAPE to continue to be an effective advocate for positive change in Chicago's public schools. For the third consecutive year Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education has received a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America's largest independent evaluator of charities. Follow this link to donate to CAPE. Meet the Board Carol P. Eastin What is your occupation? I am retired; my last position was Senior Vice President/CIO of Starbucks Coffee Company. How long have you been a CAPE Board member? A little over a year. How did you get connected with CAPE for the first time? I was introduced to CAPE by fellow Board Member Mel Smith. What do you like about the organization? I believe in the value of arts in education and was especially pleased to see how CAPE works to establish a collaboration among teachers, teaching artists, students, school adminstration and, often, the community, to advance the quality of learning through the making of art. In addition, CAPE is one of the few organizations which strives to measure outcomes of the work they do in the schools, which serves the dual purposes of continued improvement of programs and measuring the impact on education results. Where would you like to see CAPE in the future? It would be nice to see the CAPE programs expand to more schools and broaden the impact in the Chicago Public Schools system. In addition, as the progress with the programs is documented, that they get shared beyond CPS. What did you think of the recent Convergence exhibit and the Toast to CAPE event? I always like Convergence. It shows what great work CAPE student do, and combining it this time with Toast to CAPE allowed that many more people to be introduced to CAPE's fine work.
	1. Everything Converges 2. All Things Disney		3. SCALE Redux 4. CAPErs Unite!
	This year CAPE Convergence 09 was held at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Fifteen schools who participated in the Veteran Partnership program exhibited student artwork at this annual culminating exhibition and curriculum fair. The week-long exhibition showcased visual art and media installations, book and paper arts created by students. Some highlights from the event were presentations on process, research and documenting creativity by Mark Sheridan School and Murray Language Academy. For more highlights on this exhibition, go to Convergence 09. - - - - Jerry Stefl from the School of the Art Institute and Intuit: the Center of Intuitive Art, and Scott Sikkema, CAPE's education director, taught a 3-day workshop to Chicago Public School Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster Program art teachers this August, exploring alternative drawing methods, mediums, and materials. The workshop was inspired by outsider and contemporary artists. Collaborative and timed approaches to drawing were also explored. - - - -
	Click the photo above to see a delightful short video of parents and students rehearsing.		The Walt Disney Magnet School Parents Advisory Council engaged CAPE to provide two parent/child workshops on the Arts and Literacy Development in May 2009. Families read the Sandra Cisneros short story “Eleven” (about a little girl grappling with growing up) from her collection Woman Hollering Creek. The families interpreted the story through dance, theater, video, and visual art with CAPE teaching artists Mirtes Zwierzynski, Zineb Chraibi, Ashley Winston, Jeff Harms, and Morris Bowie. The families created a video about what it feels like to not feel your age. Students performed their parents’ stories, and parents performed their children’s stories.
	From June 15 – June 19, teachers from Walt Disney Magnet School participated in a week-long Arts and Literacy institute to explore innovative strategies for teaching reading and writing through the arts. Inspired by the life of Frida Kahlo and their own histories and memories, they collaborated with artists and educators from CAPE (Morris Bowie, Robert Possehl, Arnold Aprill); the Habla center for arts and language learning in Merida, Mexico (Kurt Wootton); Project AIM at the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College Chicago (Cynthia Weiss); the Disney faculty (Sarah Roodhouse); and the University of Illinois at Chicago (Catherine Main). To learn more, visit the web site documenting this workshop
	In June, the CAPE Board of DIrectors elected a new slate of officers for the upcoming year. Our new officers are:      Mel Smith, President      Paula Carlin, Vice President      P. Loreen Mershimer, Treasurer      Jeff Byrnes, Secretary Many thanks to our officers who are stepping down: Nancy Emrich, who served as CAPE's President from 2007 to 2009, and to Jan Ellen Woelffer, who served as CAPE's Secretary from 2005 to 2009. Both Nancy and Jan will remain on CAPE's board and we thank them for their service to the organization. - - - - CAPE is pleased to announce that it secured renewed funding for its Supporting Communities through Arts Learning Environments (SCALE) program from the Illinois State Board of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program for 2009 to 2014! This five-year commitment of funding provides much needed after-school arts programming at Telpochcalli, Waters and Williams elementary schools. CAPE teaching artists will partner with faculty from the schools to bring in-school curriculum into the after-school programs. They will work together 30 weeks per year, 12 hours per week, providing a safe and stimulating learning environment for students throughout the school year. This funding is made possible with U.S. Department of Education funds. Please tell your congressperson and senators that this type of educational programming is important to you! Visit http://capwiz.com/artsusa/dbq/officials for information on how to reach your representatives. - - - -
	Grape Juice recording artists The MPLS Henrys chose CAPE as their non-profit for Grape Juice Records' Non-Profit Program, in which the label donates a portion of a particular album's sales to a non-profit of the band's choice. Buy a MPLS Henrys album and support CAPE at the same time! Grape Juice Records is excited to be celebrating five years of independent music this year. Tickets for their anniversary party – which will feature nine bands, a custom cake from Duff Goldman (Food Network's Ace of Cakes) and a FREE compilation CD – are available at Double Door.
	As part of her international travels to investigate effective partnership models, Susie Miller, Public Engagement Associate for LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) traveled to Chicago and met with the CAPE staff to discuss strategies for generating meaningful collaborations. The exchange was rich and wide-ranging, and included ideas about peer mentorships between veteran and novice partners in order to "fast-track" partnership development. She is responsible for investigating inspiring models of engagement and partnership as part of the Cultural Leadership Programme, a UK Government funded inniative to develop excellence in leadership across the Cultural and Creative Industries. "This meeting alone made the trans-Atlantic trip worthwhile," she commented. "CAPE validated so many of my thoughts about this practice. I found CAPE's concepts of 'radical compliance' (turning compliance into activism) and 'learner as colleague' (engaging teachers, students, and community members as co-artists in making original professional work) as especially helpful and compelling." - - - - CAPE Founding and Creative Director Arnold Aprill presented a hands-on workshop, entitled "Telling Our Story", on CAPE's approach to multi-media documentation to the Great Lake Award Initiative of the Legacy Foundation of Indiana. The participants started out as politely attentive, but as the power of grassroots multi-media documentation became clear, they became energetically enthusiastic, not only about representing their own work, but also about looking at the documentation of their socially engaged not-for-profit colleagues. Click on the photo below to hear a hearty endorsement of CAPE's documentation methods. - - - -
	The serious side of arts education, epitomized by CAPE staffers, past and present. Check out the ESP web site for ideas on co-planning and teaching through the arts.		This July, CAPErs Arnold Aprill, Laura Tan and Hilesh Patel attended the Empire State Partnerships (ESP) Summer Seminar in Long Island, New York. Arnie was a workshop leader and presenter and all three engaged in dialogues that continue today. This year's theme of "Creativity as Catalyst" resonated with them, and they returned with workshop ideas, new methods and new connections with arts education leaders, such as Godfrey Simmons of Epic Theatre, Russell Granet of the Annenberg Center, and Pete McGuigan from CAPE UK. They also reunited with former CAPErs Erica Tryon and Stephanie Pereira.
	CAPE's Executive DIrector Amy Rasmussen was interviewed by Tracy Stevens for her A Better Education blogspot. Click to check out Amy's riff on CAPE, music, and education in Chicago. - - - - The Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education features prominently in Wikipedia's entry for arts integration. Check it out!

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