Ten-County School Service Program
The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota will increase access and deepen engagement with their effectively proven School Service Program. The museum will take down the economic barriers and increase enrollment. This grant will fund more educators and facilitators, curriculum development, scholarship aid, transportation assistance and art/teaching supplies.
The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids has a rare opportunity to deliver learning enrichment activities to children in northern Minnesota who generally do not have access to many arts and cultural venues found in the Twin Cities. Over half of the students in the 16 county service area qualify for free and reduced meal programs in their respective districts. Families and schools do not have the resources to provide creative out-of-the-classroom extended learning for their children.
Many children are culturally and educationally deprived. The vast distance from large cities most often denies these children the rich creative offerings of a metropolitan area. Poverty is endemic in northern Minnesota. More than 15% of children in each of these 16 counties live in poverty.
The Children's Discovery Museum will address these critical issues by supplementing our proven experiential learning activities.
Kaywin Feldman currently serves as the Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Ms. Feldman has more than 15 years of experience leading major art museums and expanding collections and transforming relationships with surrounding communities.
Joanne Jones-Rizzi currently serves as the Director of Community Engagement at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Ms. Jones-Rizzi has more than 25 years of experience in exhibit design and community engagement in both children’s and science museums.
Daniel Spock currently serves as the Director of the Minnesota Historical Society’s History Center Museum. Mr. Spock’s more than 25 years in the museum field include experience as an exhibit designer, an exhibit developer, and public program leadership and administration.
Children's Museums Grants. $500,000 the first year and $500,000 the second year are for a competitive Arts and Cultural Heritage Grants Program-Children's Museums. The board of directors shall solicit proposals and award grants to children's museums for projects and programs that maintain or promote our cultural heritage.
1. Double SSP enrollment to 4,000 children in 20122. Enroll five (5) new schools from each of our six (6) additional service counties (30) new first time schools3. Enroll 40 schools that previously participated at CDM and promote multiple visits each year.4. Teacher rating scores on all all questions asked in the written evaluation survey meet or exceed 4.5 (5 being the highest score, and 1 being the lowest).
1. CDM has more than doubled its school service program enrollment which increased 130%. SSP enrollment reached 4,518 compared with 1,982 during the previous 12 months. There were 3,522 children, 424 teachers and 572 chaperons participating.
2. The museum recruited three (3) new schools (first-time participants) from two (2) new counties – Mille Lacs and Todd.
3. Thirty-seven (37) different schools enrolled again after participating the two previous years.
4. Average teacher rating scores met or exceeded 4.5 on five out of nine questions. When asked if the CDM School Service Program was a valuable use of class time teachers rated the experience at 4.73. Most importantly when asked if their students have talked about the CDM visit, the rating was 4.61.
Directors: Jerome Miner, Jeffrey Borg, Carole Erickson, Corinne Jacobson, Pam Miner, Melanie Jacobson, Laura Nikkel