The students sitting in today’s classrooms will enter a world that demands flexibility, creativity, and strong problem-solving skills.

The arts help students build those capacities.

For more than two decades, ArtsNOW has worked alongside educators and schools to make creativity an essential part of learning. Through arts integration, educators connect the arts with academic standards in ways that make learning more active, meaningful, and memorable for students.

What the evidence tells us

A 2025 evaluation conducted by the University of South Carolina’s Research, Evaluation, and Measurement Center across ArtsNOW partner schools found:

• 95% of educators reported increased student engagement.
• 92% reported improvement in students’ understanding of academic concepts.
• 81% said they were more likely to remain in the profession.

We see those outcomes reflected in individual school communities, too.

At J.C. Lynch Elementary School in South Carolina, third-grade English language arts performance increased by 36 percentage points in one year during the school’s work with ArtsNOW.

Through ArtsNOW’s federally funded literacy work, 78% of participating fourth graders improved their reading scale scores, far surpassing the project’s federal benchmark of 30%.

These findings show what is possible when students are actively engaged in learning and educators have the tools and support to teach creatively.

Every student deserves access

Every student deserves access to the kind of learning these findings make possible, regardless of ZIP code, school resources, or local funding capacity.

Making that possible takes all of us. School and district leaders who invest in creative learning. Policymakers who champion access. Families and community members who speak up. Partners and funders who help schools build lasting capacity.

Put the evidence into action

This National Arts in Education Week, help us put the evidence in more hands.

Join ArtsNOW on October 13 for a live virtual Research Briefing where we’ll unpack the findings, connect the research to what is happening in classrooms, and explore what the evidence means for students, educators, and school communities.

You can also download our Arts Integration Evidence Brief and share it with a school leader, policymaker, funder, colleague, or community partner.

Download the Arts Integration Evidence Brief

Start with one person. Share the evidence. Invite them to join you October 13. Help build a future where creative learning is part of every student’s education.

Want to help expand access to creative learning? Support ArtsNOW’s work.

As educators and students return to classrooms for a new school year, ArtsNOW is celebrating a milestone that reflects the power of creativity, partnership, and a shared commitment to meaningful education.

In 2026, ArtsNOW received the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts. Presented by the South Carolina Arts Commission, this recognition celebrates ArtsNOW’s leadership and impact in advancing arts-integrated learning throughout the state. This summer, ArtsNOW gathered at the Columbia Museum of Art to recognize this achievement alongside members of our team, partners, and supporters. Our new two-minute video captures the spirit of that celebration and partnerships that make our work possible.

This award belongs to the educators who welcome creativity into their classrooms, the school leaders who invest in innovative approaches to teaching and learning, and the students who bring learning to life through visual arts, music, dance, digital arts, and theatre. It also reflects the commitment of the partners and supporters who understand that the arts are not an extra. They are a powerful pathway for building student engagement, strengthening academic understanding, and helping students develop the confidence to express their ideas.

Across South Carolina, ArtsNOW works alongside schools and districts to provide customized professional learning, practical classroom strategies, and sustained support for educators. The Governor’s Award recognizes the progress made through these partnerships while inspiring us to continue reaching more educators, students, and school communities.

As a new school year begins, we are carrying this momentum forward. We remain committed to equipping educators, strengthening classrooms, and expanding access to arts-integrated learning across South Carolina and beyond.

Watch the video and join us in celebrating the educators, students, partners, and supporters who made this milestone possible. Together, we are bringing learning to life.

Inside the 2026 ArtsNOW Foundational Seminar — and what teachers are taking back to their classrooms.

Every June, something happens that shapes thousands of students' school years: educators gather, roll up their sleeves, and spend three days rethinking how they teach. That's the ArtsNOW Foundational Seminar.

The Foundational Seminar is ArtsNOW's flagship professional learning experience, designed for school teams that include administrators, arts educators, and classroom teachers. It's not a sit-and-listen workshop. It's hands-on, standards-aligned, and built around one core belief: that the arts aren't a supplement to great teaching — they're central to it. This year, ArtsNOW celebrated its milestone 20th Foundational Seminar. The Georgia edition was held at Lake Lanier Islands from June 3-5, while the South Carolina edition was held at the Columbia Museum of Art the following week from June 10-12. In total, at both seminars, 324 educators attended, 51 schools were represented, and 4 states were represented.

This year’s Georgia Foundational Seminar also welcomed WSB-TV Channel 2 Atlanta News to capture educators in action. The feature offered a meaningful glimpse into the energy of Foundational and the impact of bringing creativity, connection, and academic learning together in one space. Watch the full clip to see ArtsNOW’s work in action.

What happens at Foundational

Over three immersive days, participants move through sessions spanning various art forms— music, theatre, dance, visual arts— and leave with practical strategies they can bring directly into their content areas. Sessions are grounded in research and aligned to both content and fine arts standards, which means the learning isn't siloed: a third-grade teacher walks away knowing new strategies for teaching English Language Arts through choreography, or how a visual arts lens can deepen a history lesson.

The format matters as much as the content. Teachers learn the way they're asked to teach: actively, collaboratively, and creatively. The research-based strategies are modeled in real time, so participants experience it in real time.

Key learnings from 2026

This year's seminar reinforced several themes that teachers said shifted how they think about their practice. Among the most commonly cited takeaways:

1. Arts integration works best when it's authentic.

Teachers bring back more than just strategies from Foundational. Rather, teachers leave having discovered a new way of thinking about how the arts and academic content genuinely connect. Authentic arts integration means students aren't using movement or music as a memory trick; they're engaging with both the art form and the content on its own terms, in ways that deepen understanding of each. That distinction changes everything. When teachers learn to build those real connections — between a dance concept and a math principle, between visual composition and a literacy skill — students begin to think differently.

2.  The arts address what classrooms are struggling with most.

Engagement, literacy, social-emotional learning. These are some of the challenges teachers name year after year. Arts-integrated strategies speak directly to all three, giving educators new tools for reaching students who don't thrive in traditional instructional settings.

3.  Teachers leave with a community, not just a toolkit.

Because Foundational brings school teams together, not just individual teachers, educators return to their buildings with shared language and shared strategies. That peer network becomes a support system for implementation that lasts well beyond the seminar itself.

What comes next

The Foundational Seminar is just the beginning of these educators’ journeys. Throughout the school year, ArtsNOW continues to support partner schools through in-classroom demonstrations, coaching, collaborative planning sessions, and more.

For the educators who attended this summer, the school year ahead looks a little differently. They're walking into their classrooms with new tools, a stronger sense of what's possible, and the knowledge that they're not doing this work alone.

That's what ArtsNOW is here for.

Connect with us to learn more about the Foundational Seminar and how to make this opportunity possible for your school.