Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will grow its Leadership and Education Development (Teen LEAD) program to increase its effectiveness on teens, their families, and their schools. Teen LEAD includes museum tours and classroom lessons tied to Common Core Standards targeting 21st century skills development, and college and workforce readiness; a student docent program, training teens to be gallery guides for their peers visiting the museum, instilling leadership skills and modeling them for their classmates; and a youth council giving teens paraprofessional experience learning about museum practices, budgeting, marketing, and evaluation. Combined with an earlier pilot phase of the program, the museum will produce five years of data to be shared as a replicable model with other organizations seeking to engage teen audiences.