In June, the Museum hosted the second annual week-long teacher workshop on arts integration for the Straight A’s Program of the Birmingham City Schools. The program is currently measuring the impact of arts-integration academic partnerships between classroom teachers and teaching artists on fourth grade literacy and mathematics skills over a three-year period in nine Birmingham City elementary schools. The program supports these classroom-teaching partnerships through professional development and intensive school-based curriculum mapping.

The Birmingham City Schools and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham are partners in the program that was awarded $1.16 million from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement. The Museum’s Education Department has organized a complimentary program targeting the third-graders and the community at large at each of the nine participating Straight A’s schools.