pARTnerschools

Welcome to a new school year of creating intercultural communities through the arts!

Our Mission: Empower and Inspire

Partnerschools empowers and inspires students by building connections through the arts that reflect the diversity of our city. Their horizons will expand as they experience diversity as a strength and an asset.

Partnerschools' goal is to create stronger communities by connecting different schools and creating art together. Through the creative process, students learn that we are more similar than we are different.

We are changing children's lives by breaking through cultural barriers.

2024/25 will feature many established and new partnerships, starters, field trips, performances, sing-alongs and Cultural Mirror sessions. We will also collaborate with numerous local and national organizations. Our Bucket Drumming movement will continue in 2024/25!

Please watch our school year report!

Thank you to our 2023/24 partnering and supporting organizations!

Anna-Maria Moggio Foundation

Houston Arts Alliance

The NOVUM Foundation

The Clayton Fund

The Junior League of Houston

Houston Grand Opera, Ars Lyrica Houston, The Women's Fund, Methodist Hospital, Pasadena City Hall, HCCAC, Rice University, Christ The King Presbyterian Church, Express Children's Theater, Heights Kids' Day of Music, SCORE

We are more similar than we are different

Who We Are

Partnerschools creates partner schools in our community. This allows students and faculty from both schools to:

exchange ideas
learn from and with each other
develop friendships and new modes of thinking
gain appreciation and acceptance

We connect the Music, Art, Theater, and Creative Writing departments from two different schools, and facilitate their collaboration on interactive projects, like choir concerts and art shows. The collaboration consists of workshops, teacher visits, virtual visits, and joint rehearsals. Each collaboration will culminate in a shared concert, event or virtual content. We call this our partner program.

Art is a unifying agent, it is non-competitive, it helps us build stronger bonds with each other.

Our starter program supports teachers who bring music, art, theater and creative writing classes to schools that don't have these as part of their curriculum. Read more on the starter page.

Our cultural mirror program brings successful professionals into the schools to inspire and encourage students and show them potential future versions of themselves.

Together, we build a future of a strong and peaceful society.

A message from the founder

When I learned that the city we live in, Houston,Texas, is considered the most diverse city in our country, I was quite surprised. Even though our community has great ethnic diversity, it seems that people from these different cultures usually live in their own neighborhoods and have very little opportunity to mix and build relationships.

I personally find it very exciting and important to meet and learn from people of different cultures. I sense this great opportunity right here on our doorstep. And yet, it is not easy to grasp. This is what inspired partnerschools.

The way I explain the project to the children is: we create an opportunity for children from different neighborhoods to sing together.

Art is a unifying agent. Our experiences of the past several years with partnerschools show that children share the excitement of learning from each other. Children love to explore their differences, their similarities, and they love to bring all their experiences together to create art with each other.