Establishing an Performing Arts Health Workshop for Secondary Fine Arts Teachers in Texas

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to develop a consensus-based workshop for fine arts educators in Texas to meet state mandates requiring the inclusion of health-related concepts during classroom instruction. Methods: The Texas Center for Performing Arts Health partnered with Denton Independent School District (DISD) to establish the City of Denton as the epicenter for innovation, research, and education in performing arts health. Musician-Researchers, fine arts administrators, and six music educators from DISD developed a professional development workshop for secondary fine arts educators. Our partnership with DISD allowed this project to expand to serve 100 fine arts educators in the district including music, dance, and theater during a 2-day workshop. Through this workshop, our organization presented current research about performing arts health, facilitated group discussions, and worked to develop best-practices for including performing arts health content in fine arts classrooms across DISD. Results: We assessed these educators' attitudes and knowledge about performing arts health-related information and used this feedback to inform the next phases of our project. We found that these educators offered appreciation for the content given but expressed the need for deliverables that could be implemented into their classrooms post-workshop. Conclusion: The feedback we received can be categorized into three main areas of growth: 1) there is need for novel performing arts health-related resources, 2) increased communication and 3) collaboration among current stakeholders and performing arts health professionals must develop a deeper understanding of the fine arts classroom context.