What's new at Leap

11/03/09

For LeAp’s 2009 – 2010 Catalog, click here

For LeAp’s Fall 2009 Newsletter, click here

SPECIAL: 20% Off LeAp Programs

LeAp understands that the schools are suffering from all of the budget cuts. We are committed to help your students succeed and therefore we have significantly reduced our in-school fees to below our contracted rate with the DOE.

LeAp is offering a 20% discount on all in-school residencies. LeAp’s arts residencies use proven effective hands-on strategies to help students improve their English, math, social studies, and science skills and knowledge.

Our hands-on, arts-based approach utilizes visual arts, music, dance, and theater, to improve students' test scores across the board. A longitudinal NYU study shows that LeAp students significantly outperform their peers.

• ELA test scores increased dramatically
• The verbal gender gap between boys and girls closed
• ELL students were brought up to grade level
• More 8th grade students passed the NY State Social Studies test
• More 4th graders passed the NY State Science test

Please call us to find out how you can get LeAp in your school: (212) 769-4160.

LeAp Presents Annual Student Art Exhibition at the Citigroup Towers (June through November 09)

Thanks to the support of Citigroup, LeAp students from schools in four boroughs created artwork displayed in LeAp’s Annual Art Exhibition at the Citigroup Towers in Long Island City, which runs until the end of November.

From Chinese Dragon Kites and a diorama of Coney Island to Native American quilts and animal masks, Leap’s Annual Art Exhibition runs the gamut of visual arts.

Over 80 students attended LeAp’s Annual Art Exhibition on October 20. Students viewed the artwork they created with Leap teaching artists and received certificates for their achievement.

Watch the NY1 clip here.

LeAp is One of Two Arts Agencies to Win 21^st Century Grant

This year LeAp received a 21^st Century grant, one of only two arts education organizations in NYC to do so. LeAp will provide engaging hands-on activities linked to the academic programs at PS 84 and PS 19 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The federally-funded 21^st Century program supports the creation of community learning centers that operate programs during afterschool hours for students, particularly for those in disadvantaged communities, and their families.

The 21^st Century grants provide academic enrichment activities along with youth development opportunities and parent literacy/outreach workshops to complement students’ in-school programs. These afterschool programs help students achieve high test scores as well. Some of the programs LeAp will provide include chess, fashion design, musical productions, puppetry, and dance. Parent workshops will include ELL, GED, literacy, stress management, and more.

LeAp will also provide these engaging programs to students in 13 other schools through 21st Century funds given directly to school districts.

LeAp Receives USDOE’s American History Grant to Provide Professional Development Workshops with Columbia University for a Bronx Charter School Collaboration with 11 Schools

LeAp is collaborating with Columbia University’s History Department and the Carl C. Icahn Charter School’s ten charter school collaborative on a five year Fundamentals of American History Project grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History program. This project is an extension of LeAp’s American History Comes Alive program. The goals of this lecture/hands-on project are to improve the instruction of American history by training teachers and increasing student achievement outcomes.

The American history lectures are being given by Columbia University history professors Eric Foner, Natasha Lightfoot, Elizabeth Blackmar, Herbert Sloan, and Evan Haefeli and related innovative workshops and classroom modeling will be conducted by LeAp's Executive Director Ila Lane Gross, Dr. Deborah Everett-Lane, and LeAp teaching artists. The entire program includes lectures, educational strategy workshops, in-class modeling, summer seminars, panel discussions, and historical site visits. This project will introduce teachers to proven and effective new approaches to teaching American history with topics ranging from Native Americans to the various presidential eras and the causes of the Civil War.

This grant builds on the successful strategies that LeAp developed with funding from Project Save, a two year, federal grant in American History for 7^th and 8^th grade which linked social studies with literacy. PS/IS 188M and JHS 162X both reported dramatic increases on the statewide ELA tests as a result of the program.

As Project Save made significant improvements in teaching and learning at the participating schools, this new federally-funded collaborative project seeks to do so as well!

LeAp’s Public Art Program Mounts the Largest Student Exhibition in the History of NYC Parks: Students Speak out on Important Issues through Art (May through September 09)

Developed by LeAp’s Public Art Program in cooperation with NYC Parks & Recreation, this second-annual citywide exhibition seeks to empower young people to have a voice in their communities—speaking out on issues such as gangs, violence, the environment, drugs, the economy and cultural diversity, among others—and become catalysts for social change through their art.

LeAp’s Public Art Program worked with students from ten NYC public middle schools to explore community issues, examine the history, practice and power of public art and ultimately create beautiful artworks using a school lunchroom table as a canvas—a symbol of student ideas and conversations. Students also met with distinguished Guest Artists including Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Tom Otterness, Dennis Oppenheim, Kenny Scharf, Vito Acconci, Tim Rollins, Leo Villareal, Betty Woodman, George Woodman, Mary Miss and Bradley McCallum.

The program has been endorsed by NYC Parks & Recreation, NYC Department of Education, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Offices of the mayor and governor, and generously supported by HSBC Bank USA, Surroundart, The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Kinder Morgan Foundation, N.A., Richmond County Savings Foundation and The Compleat Sculptor.

Watch the NBC clip here.

Watch the NY1 clip here.

Fidelity FutureStage: A Success on Broadway (June 09)

The final five Fidelity FutureStage plays debuted on Broadway at the Imperial Theater on June 15 with Queen Latifah hosting the event. Ranging from hilarious comedies about computer obsession to hard-hitting dramas about gangs and the consequences of your actions, all the plays were a success, yielding very positive reviews from all those in attendance.

LeAp Receives 2009 Encore Award (May 09)

LeAp is one of four organizations to win the Arts & Business Council’s Encore Award for its collaboration with Fidelity Investments and the Viertel/Frankel/Baruch/Routh Group for its Fidelity FutureStage program. The award recognizes exemplary partnerships between arts organizations and businesses.

NYC August Wilson Monologue Competition Winners (May 09)

The works of August Wilson's were given new life by the 16 students competing at the first ever NYC August Wilson Monologue Competition at Washington Irving High School on April 6. Adreena Thompson, a 11th grader from Gramercy Arts High School in Manhattan; Paul Edme Belneau, a 11th grader from Hillcrest High School in Queens; and Chrystal Maldonado, a 9th grade student from Gramercy Arts High School won the competition and are moving forward to the National August Wilson Monologue Competition at the August Wilson Theatre on April 27. Tony Award winning actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson spoke to the students at the event and Frankie Faison and other theater professionals judged the event. This program has been funded by NYC DOE, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, the Lemberg Foundation, and Lori Silverberg.

Read the full story here.

LeAp Helms PS 33X’s Afterschool Program

LeAp was recently awarded the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) grant to helm the afterschool program at PS 33 in the Bronx, providing innovative programs to over 250 children for the next five years.

Student Art Display inside HSBC Building

Elementary school students from PS 12 in Queens have used photography and mixed media to create Andy Warhol-inspired works that address the theme of nature and the environment. Seven of these collaborative works have been selected to be displayed inside the Fifth Avenue Office building of HSBC Bank USA, NA, which provided funding for this project.

Students at LeAp After School Sites Build World’s Largest Piggy Bank to be Entered in The Guinness Book of World Records (March 09)

Students in LeAp’s after school programs at JHS 22X, PS 163M, and PS 182Q have built the world’s largest piggy bank. The pig, funded by Upromise, symbolizes the importance of setting goals, staying in school, working hard, and saving money for college. The grand unveiling was at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle on March 24.

Watch the two NY1 clips here and here.

Read the NY Daily News–Queens article here.

Read The West Side Spirit article here.

LeAp’s ALLL 3 – 5 Featured on ABC Evening News

ABC News aired Education Reporter Art McFarland' story on Arts Learning Leads to Literacy for grades 3 through 5 (ALLL 3 – 5), a program LeAp received a $1 million four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to implement in ten schools, on February 24, 2009. Watch the clip here. The NY Daily News and the Bronx Times also covered ALLL 3 – 5. The press visited PS 48 in the Bronx where they saw first-hand how arts can build literacy skills by combining lessons with activities such as music, drama, and games.

Click here for the NY Daily News article.

Click here for the Bronx Times article.