March Artist of the Month - Student
Arianna Littlebull-Williams
Grantosa Drive School
Arianna Littlebull-Willliams is an exceptional young artist and creator who aspires to become an architect. Arianna is a self-driven designer who creates with enthusiasm and passion. She frequently brings in items that she has made at home, including paper flowers, re-purposed tissue boxes, pillows, and more.
Arianna is a creative thinker who thinks outside the box. She takes on any design challenge with which she is faced, whether building bridges for the science fair, creating bulletin boards, or designing buttons. Academically, she puts her best foot forward and strives to be a great student and classmate. Her genuine character shines through all she does.
March Artist of the Month - Staff Member
Sarah Ozurumba
ALBA
Ms. Ozurumba is an amazing art teacher whose love for the arts clearly rubs off on her students. She encourages all students not only to be the best artists they can be but also to be the best people. She always meets students at their level of ability, encouraging them and helping them to grow as artists and individuals.
Ms. Ozurumba teaches her students to know and use art as a means of personal expression, and she helps the entire ALBA community understand that instruction in fine arts prepares students to become individuals who take risks and think more creatively and analytically, that students who study fine arts will achieve more in academics. She inspires students to take pride in their work, and she extends the influence of artistic learning by displaying student art throughout the school and community through ALBA's community partners.
In addition to all this, Ms. Ozurumba is working to complete her National Board Certification in early and middle childhood/art and is one of only seven MPS teachers recently honored by the Kohl Foundation Scholarship and Fellowship Program. Teacher fellowship recipients are chosen for leadership, service, and a superior ability to inspire a love of learning in students.
March Artist of the Month - Community Partner
Teri Sullivan
Arts @ Large
Teri Sullivan is co-founder and CEO of Arts @ Large, a community arts organization that was born out of a US Department of Education grant to serve Milwaukee Public Schools. For the past seventeen years, Arts @ Large has provided services to schools across the district. Arts @ Large schools receive comprehensive services that include art and multimedia supplies to implement innovative student-driven projects, teacher and artist training and professional development, and research excursions to the multitude of museums, organizations, and higher education partners. In addition, hundreds of artist residencies are scheduled each school year and summer that integrate the arts across all areas and grade levels.
In the fall of 2015, Teri Sullivan and Deb Jolitz, fine arts manager at MPS, identified more than twenty-five K-12 schools in need of art education services. The gaps were due to a distinct lack of licensed art and music teachers available to fill these roles. Until the pool of licensed arts teachers increased, thousands of students across the district faced an entire school year without arts or music education. In a collaborative planning process, the staff of Arts @ Large and MPS arts administrators designed the "Fill the Gaps" initiative, a temporary system of innovative arts education that places trained and qualified artist educators in schools until licensed art and music specialists could be identified and hired by the district for permanent school placement. Fill the Gaps has provided thousands of MPS students with the opportunity to have rich arts experiences.