Fall 2025 Coalition Convening Bellingham WA
MEETING MINUTES & NEXT STEPS:
October 28 —Travel day
4PM Check in to Hotel Leo
6PM Dinner at The 'Ono Kitchen
Oct 29 —Convening day
8AM – 4PM Allied Arts – of Whatcom County
12:15PM Food Delivery | Guud Bowls
4:30PM – 5:30PM Site Visit TBD
Convening Goals
Explore Washington State’s Arts Education Survey results & next steps
Build statewide community amongst coalition partners
Establish governance process
Keep in mind Coalition updates:
The Jan 2026 – Dec 2026 NEA Collective Impact grant notifications are expected to arrive by December 2025. A4A applied in April.
Officially welcomed Miranda Hein of ArtsED Washington as the A4A Admin Communications Lead and Naho Shioya of SOZO Evolution as the A4A Admin Governance Lead!
We were so honored to have guest speakers Adonia Cairns and Raven Borsey share about their powerful organization Children of the Setting Sun, highlighting the following projects:
Register for Netse Mot: One Heart | One Mind | Tuesday, November 18, 2025 at the Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA. Doors open at 6PM. Show begins at 7PM. Although they are not coordinating official field trips, students and faculty are welcome to organize their own field trips to join in the second annual Netse Mot celebration.
Access their Setting Sun Institute - Library | The Digital Heritage Library preserves and shares the media produced by Children of the Setting Sun, offering a centralized resource for educators, students, researchers, and changemakers. This platform connects users with Indigenous stories that inspire cultural understanding and drive meaningful action.
Watch the West Shore Film | West Shore is an 18-minute documentary film that follows the West Short Canoe Family as they paddle through their ancestral waters and connect with relatives during the 2023 Paddle to Muckleshoot. Tribes from Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Alaska and California come together in potlatch and share in a cultural exchange of food, song, dance, generosity and medicine. The film is a celebration of Indigenous Coastal culture, and shows how the annual Tribal Journeys events play an integral role in community, wellness and tribal resurgence today.
Find the Arts Education Partnership (AEP) Conference highlights as presented by Miranda Hein of ArtsED Washington and Gail Fraiser of the Seattle Creative Advantage.
Get a first look at the 2025 Data Project Survey results as presented by Candace Gratama of Illuminate Evaluation Services. This PDF is for coalition review; Public-facing materials will be uploaded near the end of November. We will follow up soon with updates about beginning 2026 case studies to supplement the data as well as future communications/outreach efforts to your identified groups of students/families, educators, legislature, and more.
Review our Coalition Member demographics for the 2025 cohort as presented by Naho Shioya of SOZO Evolution. Find the complete A4A Governance Charter here. As our first three members of A4A move into Emeritus/Alumni status,* continuing A4A Coalition Members will receive an email in November 2025 to vote in new members electronically. New members will be on-boarded in December and begin as A4A Coalition Members in January 2026. Our first meeting in January will be via ZOOM on Tuesday, January 6 from 3:00 – 4:00PM.
*We want to thank and congratulate members of our first Alumni/Emeritus group: Traci Young of Vancouver Public Schools,
Becky Broyles of the Washington Art Education Association, and Kristina Cummins of the Washington State Thespians. A4A has been made possible by their commitment and support through the many years. We look forward to seeing them in future A4A meetings as alumni!
