Our museum has a very unique partnership as we are owned and operated by the school district. We provide free programs and tours to all schools and educators. We also provide free transportation through our bus fund. All our programs, tours and transportation costs are subsidized through grants and donations. Last year we served 7,176 through our regularly scheduled tours. We had 8,260 people in attendance at our School and Educator Programs. In total the education department had 21, 177 people in attendance at our programs and tours during the year. Not big numbers compared to many large city museums. However, almost all of those people didn't pay a dime. Plus we do not charge admission. Point being, that for a small city we are able to serve a great portion entirely free and very successfully through grants and donations. We create a plethora of educator guides and traveling trunks with pre and post lesson plan. I have to say they are hardly used. We traditionally have created educator guides for exhibitions but the lack of use caused us to stop producing them. The most popular educator guide and trunk is our African Americans in Art and History which gets a long list of reservations for the month of February. We could have gotten away with one or two on American Art and History and Skipped the other ones we have. They are nice to have for the occasional teacher who asks for them but honestly the only people who use the educator guides regularly are our docents. The bus fund is a life savor for the schools. With transportation going to sports and music groups first, all other subjects are often left to fend for themselves. Attendance drastically increased when we provided free transportation. You have never seen a group of teachers light up as they do when we tell them we have free transportation. All the other institutions in town have followed our lead after seeing the response,... even the ones that charge for their programming. Hope this helps. Nicola Warren Sarn School and Educator Services Coordinator Columbus Museum 1251 Wynnton Road Columbus, Georgia 31906 Phone: 706.748.2562, ext. 653 Fax: 706.748.2570 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ________________________________ From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Judith Andrews Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 12:49 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Museum and School District Partnership Question Hi everyone, I am a graduate student at Arizona State University in the Museum Anthropology Program. I am working on a group project and we are creating a program for one of the local history museums to partner with the school system, there is a preexisting partnership although it is not a very utilized relationship, to display and sell student artwork to raise funds (in true art show fashion). The funds we are trying to raise would cover the costs of busing the students from low income schools to the museum, the history curriculum and the information in the museum are complementary, and also to develop better education packets and post-visit materials for the students. We were wondering if anyone knows of similar programs elsewhere in the United States and if they were successful or not. Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Judith Andrews -- Judith Andrews Graduate Teaching Assistant Arizona State University School of Human Evolution & Social Change Tempe, AZ 85287-2402 ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).