[EdTalks] SmartARTS Program: The Power of Arts Integration

Many nonprofit school partnerships struggle to make a lasting impact, so how has one program thrived for over 20 years, completely transforming classrooms in the process? This episode of Simple Civics: Ed Talks dives deep into the award-winning SmartARTS program, a revolutionary model that successfully fuses art with core curriculum subjects. We sit down with Kimberly Gibbs, Director of Arts Education for the Metropolitan Arts Council, and teaching artist ShAy Black to uncover the blueprint for building sustainable and effective nonprofit school partnerships that genuinely boost student achievement and foster community collaboration.

For over two decades, the SmartARTS program has created a powerful alliance between the Metropolitan Arts Council and Greenville County Schools. In this discussion, Kimberly Gibbs reveals the secret to their success: a fully-funded model that removes the financial burden from schools and focuses on deep, collaborative relationships. We explore the critical difference between simple arts enrichment and true arts integration in schools, where art standards and academic curriculum are given equal weight. Teaching artist ShAy Black shares her firsthand experience of using poetry and visual arts to teach subjects like science, demonstrating how project-based learning can ignite a passion for learning in all students—even those who don't consider themselves "artists." A key component of this model is the significant investment in professional development for teachers in arts, which pairs educators with artists to co-plan and co-teach, creating a dynamic and supportive classroom environment. By focusing on taking tasks off teachers' plates and delivering high-quality, engaging content, the program provides clear evidence of the impact of arts on student achievement, building confidence, resilience, and essential 21st-century skills like creative problem-solving and collaboration. This conversation serves as a masterclass for any organization looking to establish impactful nonprofit school partnerships.

About Our Guests:

Kimberly Gibbs is the Director of Arts Education for the Metropolitan Arts Council. She oversees the SmartARTS program and shares insights into its history, structure, and the strategies that have made it a sustainable and celebrated initiative in Greenville County.

ShAy Black is a professional teaching artist specializing in poetry and visual arts. She works directly with teachers and students through the SmartARTS program, sharing powerful stories of how arts integration helps students find their voice, build confidence, and connect with their education in new and exciting ways.

Episode Resources:

• Learn more about SmartARTS

• Learn more about the Metropolitan Arts Council

• Discover Greenville County Schools

Introduction

Mary Leslie Anderson: Arts integration is good for all students. It is the key to meaningful, inclusive, and humanistic learning. It nurtures learners' ability, conceptual tools, and strategies to construct meaning and achieve understanding. But what does all that mean? This is Mary Leslie Anderson with Rooted Consulting, and on today's episode of Simple Civics Ed Talks, Derek Lewis and I talk with Kimberly Gibbs, Director of Arts Education for the Metropolitan Arts Council, and teaching artist, ShAy Black, about the impact of arts education on student achievement and community collaboration.

Derek Lewis: Thank you guys for being a part of the podcast today, and thanks for being here. I first learned about SmartARTS through the Riley Institute and the What Works Clearinghouse, and that was really exciting to see an art program recognized as having both an impact on students and student achievement. Maybe if we could start, Kimberly, with what is SmartARTS and how does it work?

What is the SmartARTS Program?

Kimberly Gibbs: SmartARTS is a program housed at the TD Center for Arts Integration and the Metropolitan Arts Council. It is a partnership with Greenville County Schools, and we have been going strong for over 20 years now. It initially began with three federal grants. The Metropolitan Arts Council and Greenville County together were the only organization partnership that received all three federal grants.

One grant was to explore arts integration in high poverty schools. Another grant was to basically track the data and the success of that. And the third grant was to develop a professional development program in arts integration. Basically what that looks like today is we now do a training for about 80 teachers every summer called the SmartARTS Education Institute that's held at the Fine Arts Center.

Throughout the school year, we work with 80 different teams of teachers, partnering a local professional artist with a local teacher to help them teach their curriculum through the arts. The third piece is we do continue to collect some data on the impact on academics, attendance, and the different ways that the arts and education coming together have such a positive impact, not just on the students, but also on the teachers and the whole culture of the different schools that we work with.

Derek Lewis: SmartARTS, for those who maybe aren't familiar with it, is a little different than having a traveling artist show up and do a project. Their relationship there between the artist and the teacher is a little more significant.

Kimberly Gibbs: Yes, absolutely. And that is probably the biggest difference between SmartARTS and other programs across the state. When our teachers come to the summer training, they're actually paired with an artist at that summer event. They work as co-teachers or as partners to plan a unit specifically tailored for that exact teacher's curriculum.

Part of our program is not just working with the students, but the professional development that provides for the teacher as she works alongside that professional artist to create an arts-based project. Because it is project-based learning. It's inquiry-based. That definitely makes us different because it's not just an artist that's showing up and doing their song and dance. It's tailored specifically for that classroom.

The Teaching Artist Experience with ShAy Black

Derek Lewis: Shay, how long have you been involved in the SmartARTS program?

ShAy Black: Since 2021.

Derek Lewis: And what type of programs are you doing with SmartARTS?

ShAy Black: I do poetry and I do visual arts. Last year I did elementary. This year I'm doing middle and high school.

Derek Lewis: Okay, and so you're going into the school, into a classroom that is an English class or what is it? Where are you typically visiting?

ShAy Black: Last year I did Berea Elementary. They were building inquiry of, I can build a model of the rainforest. So we just took different types of animals and papers, and we built a model out of the rainforest.

Derek Lewis: Okay. And you're doing that in a classroom while the teacher's there.

ShAy Black: Yes.

Derek Lewis: So the teacher's a part of this activity.

ShAy Black: Yes.

Derek Lewis: Can you just talk a little bit about the relationship that you have with the teacher? Are you working with her ahead of time?

ShAy Black: As Kimberly said, we got together during the SmartARTS Summer Institute. We come together to decide what project they want to do based on their curriculum. I build a model ahead of time before I get to the class so they can see how it would look. Then they will build something based off of what they want to do based off my kit that I bring in. The teachers, they'll just assist to keep the class in control if I need any help, but I'm basically taking the class through the art part of the integration.

Building a Sustainable Nonprofit-School Partnership

Mary Leslie Anderson: One of the things that I think community members may want to know is how does something like this start? How does a partnership like SmartARTS with Greenville County Schools begin?

Kimberly Gibbs: For this particular program, Greenville County on a district level first connected with the Metropolitan Arts Council because there were these specific federal grants where it had to be an arts organization and a school district partner together. Of course, that was in 2002, and a lot has changed over time. We started our partnership on the district level, but I really believe it's our relationship with the teachers that has kept that partnership so strong because the teachers are the ones that are the boots on the ground.

If you build relationships with them, be flexible with them because teachers have a lot of balls in the air and you have to be very flexible and have a focus on accommodating their wants. We are constantly checking in with teachers to make sure that what we're doing is suitable for them. Is it serving their needs? They complete reflection forms at the end of every unit to give us feedback on what went well or if anything could be improved. I personally go into every unit that we're having and just check with the teachers. Is everything going OK? Do you think this is working with your kids?

The other aspect is because we are fundraising from the community, the school and the teachers don't have to worry about anything to do with how the artist is getting paid or how we are going to afford these art supplies. Everything is totally covered by the money that is raised at the Metropolitan Arts Council. I think that's a big piece of it, because a lot of times partnerships will come into a school expecting that school to foot part of the bill. That is just very, very difficult, I think, for schools.

Our model is basically reforming. We drive these relationships with community partners. TD Bank is a huge community partner for us, Greenville First Steps, the South Carolina Arts Commission, the Jolley Foundation, all these wonderful community members that come together and provide the funding so that when we're working with teachers in school, they're not having to worry about that financial piece.

Defining Arts Integration vs. Arts Education

Mary Leslie Anderson: What is the difference between arts integration and arts education? There's a big difference there. And I think to the arts layperson, if you will, we might just think of art and visual art, painting or coloring. How does this differ from just straight arts education?

Kimberly Gibbs: I'm obviously a huge believer in arts for art's sake. Arts for art's sake is, of course, very important. Related arts classes are extremely important. It's a great place for so many students to find themselves, find their voices, and really develop their own creativity. But what we're doing is arts integration.

What that basically means is that the art and the South Carolina College- and Career-Ready Standards for Visual and Performing Arts Proficiency are equally weighed. Sometimes you'll have arts enrichment. Let's say, if kids are studying a science life cycle of the butterfly and they print out some worksheets of butterflies and the kids are going to color those. That's just arts enrichment. You're not really learning anything about art by completing a coloring sheet, but it could help the kids remember it better. There are still benefits to that.

Whereas arts integration, like when Shay was talking about building this 3D model, they're having to learn about the elements of design, how colors work together, how to mix paint. And then to the second part of that, when we're talking about the arts, it can sometimes be the visual arts. It can be pottery, painting. It can be sculpting. But it could also be a poetry slam. It could be a dance. It could be music. It could be drum lines or drum kits coming in, different types of music. The theater arts are an amazing way to teach so many different aspects of the curriculum.

When we're talking about the arts, we're talking about all the performing arts and the visual arts. The kids are going to learn something about that art form while they're also learning about the Crusades or light waves or whatever it is they're learning about in that standard core curriculum class.

Engaging Students and Fostering Confidence Through Art

Derek Lewis: Shay, I've got to think that going into a classroom where there may be a large number of children who maybe have never even considered participating in an art activity has got to be such a blessing for you to be able to share your expertise, but also this career path that you've chosen. Can you just talk a little bit about what it's like as an artist to go into a classroom, maybe of students who don't consider themselves artists?

ShAy Black: As I explain to them when I go in, you don't have to know how to do art. You just have to try. Art is connection-based. It's a way for self-expression. It's not about how pretty you can make it. It's just about putting your hands in and doing it. It's giving them a way to creatively think and then come up with ideas based on the elements of art and the principles of art.

Even if they say, "I can't do art," but you just did it. If you're taking a piece of paper, crumbling it up, and making a tree out of it, it doesn't have to be a realistic tree. It's an idea to making an abstract into something concrete. But those students that you're saying that don't know how to do art, but if they just try, then they're like, "Oh, I can do art." It's a way of expressing yourself. It's not about being able to make a pretty picture, it's just about doing the basics of expressing yourself through color, through writing, and just putting those two things together.

Kimberly Gibbs: One of the things we find so much is that we go into a classroom, the artists go in, and you have that student that sits every day with their head down, and they don't participate in anything. The first day we come in, they're watching a little bit, and they're like, "I'm just going to do my thing." But usually by the end of day one or day two, suddenly they're like, "Oh, well, can I have some of those materials? I think I would like to try this." By the end of the unit, they're, "When are you coming back, artist? When can I work with you again?" You definitely have a lot of kids that maybe have not had the opportunity to find out that they might have a talent that they don't even know that they have. Particularly your kids that maybe are not be strong, let's say, in traditional math and writing, they can suddenly express their learning through this creative way. It really builds their confidence a lot.

Fueling Student Achievement and 21st-Century Skills

Mary Leslie Anderson: That's a perfect segue into what I'll talk about next is that data point and the arts and how it fuels student achievement. Our school report cards just came out yesterday and the arts integration piece, which directly relates to the profile of the South Carolina graduate, really does fuel that student achievement piece. What data have y'all picked up?

Kimberly Gibbs: Part of our goal with SmartARTS is to create workers that are ready for the 21st century. When we go to work, we're working collaboratively. We are being creative problem solvers. We are going through some sort of design steps and process. I like the concept of recursive learning when you start something and you go, "We have a problem or we've reached an obstacle. How can we solve this? Or what do I need to revise? Or what do I need to change to take this and make it work better?"

Or we started working on our tableau as a group and it didn't work out as well as we thought. So now we're going to redo it again. I think that's something that you really do at work is that you work with other people, you talk about the work that you're doing, and you do creative problem solving to really create innovation and have workers that can have their own initiative and their own ideas and bring this creativity that really makes humans what humans are.

Mary Leslie Anderson: Absolutely. And on that note, the 21st century skills in Greenville County, we operate under the Graduation Plus initiative. You feed directly into what I was thinking about with how the arts fit into the work world and the career world. I think there's much more of a connection than we generally give it credit for.

Kimberly Gibbs: Absolutely. And I think, too, sometimes it can be in those quiet moments of dialogue. One of the most powerful ways that the arts actually helps things like literacy is when the kids are talking about what they're making, when they're talking about what they just made or planning to make something. That's really where the learning is happening. It's not so much about that paintbrush hitting that paper. It's really about going through the process with other people and having that dialogue and all that talking is just getting those synapses in their brains firing. That really is where the kids see a lot of growth.

Of course, too, building resilience. That's something that kids today really struggle with. The arts is such an amazing way to build resilience and say, it's okay if this little section didn't work out that great, you can go back and fix it or try again or keep going. I think that's something our learners today really need. In addition, the SmartARTS program is very hands-on. We are not on the computers when we are in the classroom. They are building things with their hands, with their bodies, they're moving, they're talking. And I think that is also just very, very powerful.

A Blueprint for Launching a School-Based Program

Derek Lewis: I can imagine that there's nonprofit directors listening to this podcast or nonprofit leaders thinking about, how do I get that level of a relationship with a school that Mac has seen with SmartARTS? A couple of things you've talked about that I think are really important, and I wonder if I'm missing anything. One is this idea of linking this work with Graduation Plus and linking it with these are the education standards that we need to meet in third grade. How can this intervention or this service help the teacher meet those standards?

The other thing that you mentioned that I thought was really, really powerful is that Mac brought to the district a service that the district didn't have to pay for. We're going to do this intervention and we're going to find the artists and we're going to compensate the artists and we're going to provide the service that will enrich what's going on. I think those are two really powerful lessons learned. Is there any other lesson that maybe you would offer to people who are thinking about how do I get my program or my foot in the door?

Kimberly Gibbs: Absolutely. I think one thing is this concept of you want to take something off the plate of the school, not add something onto their plate. And that is very important. And two, you want to make sure that you're providing a lot of support and setting people up for success. I think a lot of that comes into the organization that goes into before that artist even steps into the classroom. For someone to even be a teaching artist with us, they have to go through a very rigorous training process.

This concept of the fact that we're training our artists, but also teachers every single year, every year we're coming back and providing more training and more support because there's a lot that happens during a school year and people need a little revisiting of how the program even works. When those teachers are having a positive experience, it's really going to spread through word of mouth. They're going to see this really fun, great stuff, effective stuff happening in a classroom and go, "Oh, Miss so-and-so, well, how did you get this in your classroom? I don't have this." Then that teacher says, "This has been really great. Here's information about how you can sign up, too."

I'll also say that you have to realize that there is such high turnover among teachers that you can't just sit back on your laurels and expect people to sign up for your program every year. You've got to be constantly reaching out to principals, reaching out to teachers, re-educating principals, re-educating the district about what is your program? What are you doing? Why is it important? Reaching out to different community organizations like this podcast or the Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC Award and making sure you're really doing some marketing of your program and staying in the public eye. We do have obviously so many returning teachers with SmartARTS, but at the same time, there's a lot of turnover in the education world. So you just really need to be constantly reaching out all the time.

Mary Leslie Anderson: One of the biggest takeaways is that our community partners, nonprofit organizers agree that pouring into the school district is building social capital for our community that we all love so dearly. Really strengthening those partnerships and an understanding that the world of education is moving so quickly that a principal is not going to necessarily be able to reach out to or even know of someone that could be a fabulous community partner for their school. I like how you just said really marketing and telling people about it and working with the school district to get feet in the door. I think that is really important for our community to hear.

Kimberly Gibbs: Absolutely. I think that as a community partner, the more that you can take off the plate of the district and take off the plate of principals and teachers and also provide something that's very high quality. We can't afford to be wasting time when we go into a school. We can't send people in who are not prepared or qualified to be working in that school. If you have a very high quality program that is meeting a very specific need, then you're not going to have any problem because they're going to be welcoming you with open arms.

Derek Lewis: Well, Shay, Kimberly, thank you so much for being a part of this podcast today. But more importantly, thank you for being a part of bringing the arts to our communities. It's just so, so important and just such an incredible program that both of you are a part of. Simple Civics Ed Talks is a joint project of Greater Good Greenville, Greenville First Steps, and Public Education Partners Greenville County.