Center Township Elementary School is searching for people in the region who can help develop dance and theater programming for students at the school.

The school has listed these wants in its profile on a website called the Arts Education Collaborative, which is a Western Pennsylvania branch of the Arts Education Partnership that the district recently joined.

According to Yael Silk, executive director of Arts Education Collaborative, the online system has 23 school districts signed on and numerous “art partners” who can sign up and view the profiles of districts to see if their skills match up with listed needs.

“It is essentially a free online hub that helps connect educators in our region and immerse young people in art opportunities,” Silk said. “This platform is really the first time that schools have been able to share in a public searchable way what's happening in their building and the arts.”

Silk said the Arts Education Partnership began near the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and school districts in Western Pennsylvania were eager to get involved. She also said Brian White, superintendent of the Butler Area School District, was interested in getting schools registered.

“I'm really hoping it connects artists with our teachers and students,” White said. “Our teachers’ teachings have more relevance to students when taught by people using their skills in real life.”

Anyone can view the collaborative’s website, swpa.artlookmap.com, and browse school districts and art partners. Artists can look at a school’s profile, where that school’s requests for partners can be found, its program offerings and current art partners.

White said the system will come in handy for finding new artistic programs quickly and making connections with local people with resources and ideas.

“You enter your info, and other people enter theirs, and it shows on the map where there are similar work disciplines,” White said. “It's a way to align resources without having to utilize a lot of time or energy on our end.”

All of the schools in Butler school district have profiles on the collaborative’s website, and White said he would like to see administrators build out their wants and needs more, much like Center Township Elementary School has.

Silk said the collaborative reaches out to potential art partners intermittently to try to have them create a profile on the site. Additionally, artists who have worked with a school district in the past can be referred by a school to join the site.

Silk said she hopes to see the website become a larger network of schools and art educators who can further develop programming in Western Pennsylvania schools.

“Our primary driver is to increase the quantity and diversity of arts partnerships,” Silk said. “We want folks to be able to find each other based on what a particular group of students needs. This is really steeped in, ‘What are the learning goals of a school?’”

“It's a way of offering diverse learning opportunities and looking for students to have access to opportunities beyond what's currently being offered.”