Exciting news: our partners Create CA and ArtsEd411 are merging! Through the coming months, they will integrate and combine efforts as California’s largest organization working to ensure every student has access to a full and relevant arts education. The statement below was released by Create CA and CAAE on February 11, 2021.
We know that arts education helps students heal from trauma and build resilience. This moment requires us to put student’s mental health and well-being at the forefront. That’s why we are thrilled to see our friends and partners at California Alliance for Arts Education (the Alliance) and Create CA seizing an opportunity to become stronger in the fight for every student’s right to receive an arts education by merging their organizations.
This merger builds on a longstanding partnership and unites them in their shared mission to make sure that a quality arts education is part of every student’s life.
Operating together under the Create CA name, they will combine the power of Create CA’s dynamic communications and innovative data project with the Alliance’s proven policy and advocacy track record and statewide network supporting districts and counties to provide a full arts education to all students. They recognize that students who are low income and of color face the greatest barriers to a full and relevant arts education. Collectively, they will continue to fight for students to get what they need and deserve, because ultimately they know this is an equity issue.
Together, they have the opportunity to reimagine the entire school system – centering student’s social and emotional needs, defeating systemic racism and making sure that arts education is part of every student’s life. By coming together, they’ll go farther faster in insisting that arts education is a student right.
With the stakes higher than ever, we’re so excited about what they will do together.