UCI receives grant to improve English and arts instruction in K-2 classrooms

UC Irvine could one day claim it helped discover the next Picasso and Shakespeare, thanks to a $828,219 grant to improve English and arts instruction in K-2 classrooms. The four-year grant from the California Postsecondary Education Commission is for a UCI project titled “ArtsCore K-2: Teachers as Artists” and will provide 180 teachers with two years each of summer and school-based professional development in the visual and performing arts and English/language arts. Artists also will help teachers deliver these standards-based lessons in their classrooms. More than 7,000 K-2 students in the San Diego Unified School District will be affected. The project is patterned after a similar project in Orange County classrooms.