Arts for Learning Maryland: Transforming Education Through Arts Integration

Arts for Learning Maryland (A4LMD), formerly Young Audiences of Maryland, stands as the most far-reaching arts-in-education non-profit in the state. Founded in Baltimore in 1950, the organization is devoted to enriching the lives and education of Maryland’s youth through educational and culturally diverse arts programs. A4LMD envisions a day when every student in Maryland has the opportunity to imagine, create, and realize their full potential through the arts.

The Mission and Values

Arts for Learning is a mission-driven organization that values community, innovation, and passion. The staff, board, and teaching artists share a commitment to advance equity in the field of education by working tirelessly to generate opportunities for students to imagine, create, and realize their full potential through the arts.

Core Programs and Initiatives

A4LMD provides a diverse array of programs designed to integrate the arts into education, fostering inspired learning environments and empowering students to think outside the box. These programs are led by professional teaching artists from across various arts disciplines and range from interactive live performances to long-term, classroom-based residencies. Each year, the organization trains new teachers and artists in the use and understanding of arts integration.

Arts-Integrated Instruction

Learning in and through the arts creates inspired learning environments and empowers students to think outside the box, and A4LMD provides programs to make this happen. Arts for Learning Maryland engages the arts to ignite learning and transform education.

Summer Arts for Learning Academy (SALA)

Calling Baltimore area artists Arts for Learning is hiring for our award-winning, arts-integrated, Summer Arts for Learning Academy (SALA) in Baltimore City. Work with students in grades K-5 this summer as a teaching artist! Professional artists of all disciplines (music, visual art, dance, writing, and more) with experience working with children are encouraged to apply. The unique partnership between teaching artists and academic teachers in Summer Arts for Learning Academy builds a community of trust, confidence, kindness, and collaboration where students learn more than academics. In our Summer Arts for Learning Academy, Baltimore City Public Schools students spend summer learning from the best teachers and teaching artists in Maryland.

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Bloomberg Arts Internship (BAI) Program

Applications are now open for paid arts internships for up to 70 Baltimore City public high school students through the Bloomberg Arts Internship (BAI) program. Did you know that you don't need to be a nonprofit to host a Bloomberg Arts intern? We invite arts and cultural organizations connected to Baltimore's arts ecosystem to apply! The Bloomberg Arts Internship (BAI) is a rigorous, paid, full-time summer internship for rising high school seniors from Baltimore City Public Schools, taking place from June 15 to August 15, 2026. Our program is grounded in values of youth voice, creative expression, inclusion + accessibility, community care, intentional collaboration, and radical love. This is a full-time, paid summer internship program that includes one week of orientation followed by a seven-week internship. Through paid placements at arts and cultural organizations, professional development, and community connection, BAI supports students as they gain meaningful workforce experience while preparing for college-within a community grounded in safety, belonging, and equity.

Access for All Grants

Schools and centers in every Maryland county can now apply for Access for All grants-funding that subsidizes 50-80% of the cost of A4L programs.

Arts for Learning Principal Fellowship

As part of my year as an Arts for Learning Maryland principal felllow, we were awarded a small grant to do an art project at our school and I decided to do a mural to celebrate our diversity at Fallstaff. Shoutout to the immensely talented Jessy DeSantis for bringing my vision to life! Can’t wait to see the final product in a few weeks! The Arts for Learning Principal Fellowship gives leaders the tools and resources to energize educators and build a network that supports students through arts integration.

Saul Zaentz Teaching Artist Fellowship

The Saul Zaentz Teaching Artist Fellowship is a new program at Arts for Learning that embeds full-time teaching artists within our community school partner sites. These experienced teaching artists connect principals and community schools coordinators with ways to use the arts to support whole-school initiatives like family engagement or attendance.

Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts

Arts for Learning is the Maryland affiliate of the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts. Grounded in decades of research and practice, our programs support school readiness across social emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development. The Wolf Trap Institute Residency is a partnership between a Wolf Trap Teaching Artist and an early childhood educator to provide professional development for teachers while helping children learn through active participation. Experiences in a Classroom Residency focus on performing arts integrated strategies that teachers can use to foster young children’s learning and development.

Artist-in-Residence Programs

Young Audiences’ Artist-in-Residence programs engage students in creative experiences through a series of in-depth classroom visits from YA-trained artists who work alongside teachers and students. Many residencies are arts-integrated, connecting skills and concepts in the arts with those in math, literacy, science, and more-like exploring math and music by making a one-string guitar or handcrafting a mural depiciting our local ecosystem.

Assemblies

Young Audiences’ 45-minute assemblies inspire and motivate students with live, interactive, educational arts experiences.

Impact and Reach

Through Arts for Learning, professional teaching artists from all disciplines partner with educators, schools, and school districts to provide -- on average -- over 300,000 hours of learning in, through, and about the arts to more than 185,000 Maryland students annually.

Start with the Art: A Transformative Initiative

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen informed Arts for Learning Maryland of the five-year $3,970,442 grant award to work with Prince George’s County Public Schools for Start with the Art: Arts Integration + Co-Teaching-A Transformative Approach to Increasing Academic Achievement and Fostering Socio-emotional Development in Elementary Students. Start with the Art will incorporate four arts-integrated instructional strategies that foster the academic achievement and socio-emotional development of students, particularly students placed at risk by poverty. Start with the Art began in early 2022 by recruiting the initial cohort of schools, classroom teachers, teaching artists, and instructional coaches for the pilot. Start with the Art will be developed in collaboration with PGCPS, WolfBrown, and West Chester University (WCU). The program’s principal investigators from Wolf Brown and WCU will co-lead all aspects of the evaluation, including recruitment, assignment, data collection, analysis, reporting, and dissemination to research audiences. The US Department of Education Innovation and Research Program provides funding to create, develop, implement, replicate, and scale entrepreneurial, evidence-based, field-initiated innovations to improve student achievement and attainment for high-need students-and rigorously evaluate such innovations.

Stacie Sanders Evans, President and CEO of Arts for Learning Maryland, enthused, “This grant is a testament to our artists, staff, and board, as well as the powerful work happening within our community. It recognizes the two strategies that have been at the heart of our Summer Arts for Learning Academy- collaborative lesson planning and co-teaching-and that has resulted in academic and personal growth for nearly 9,000 students at Title I schools. Commending Arts for Learning Maryland for the award, Senator Van Hollen stated, “The quality of our students’ education should not be determined by their zip code. As we continue working to invest in public education, I’m proud to support the work of organizations like Arts for Learning Maryland that take an innovative approach to helping all our students succeed. Arts for Learning Maryland’s critical work enriches students’ lives, sets them up for future success, and helps them achieve academically through hands-on engagement in the arts and their community. “The PGCPS Department of Creative and Performing Arts has enjoyed a wonderful partnership with Arts for Learning Maryland for many years,” added Chief Executive Officer Dr. Monica Goldson. “The research team is thrilled to be partnering with Arts for Learning Maryland and PGCPS to conduct a rigorous evaluation of the impacts of arts integration on students’ development,” said Dr. Steven J. Holochwost, Principal and Director of Research for Youth & Families at WolfBrown.

A Legacy of Innovation

Young Audiences began in Baltimore in 1950, when founder Nina Collier sought to bring professional musicians to perform in the city’s schools. This experimental music series marked the beginning of A4LMD and sparked the formation of a national Young Audiences network.

Transforming Education Through the Arts: Anecdotal Evidence

At the William S. Baer school, arts-integrated learning has a powerful-even unexpected-impact on students and educators. An ELA teacher credits her school’s soaring 8th grade test scores to meeting each individual child’s learning style through arts integration. What makes kids want to break into a school as opposed to break out of one? The arts.

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