So we begin....

Hello there!
My name is Shelly Bailey and I am the Visual Art Supervisor for the Jefferson County Board of Education in Birmingham Alabama.  I had a dream to write a grant to convert a school bus into a mobile art classroom.  We have close to 36,000 kids in our school district.  56 schools to be exact.  But I have about 13 schools with no visual art teachers.  This may not sound like a lot but when you add up the students that comes to over 6,000 kids who are not getting to experience the joy of visual art making and creativity.  Well I won the grant!  AND huge support from my superintendent for my vision. We begin the planning of our build out next week with a large team of people.  We will take the next school year to do the build out using three of our high schools to do the actual work partnering with our CTE programs and our county director Bobby Jackson.  We will have multiple programs involved and skills such as: construction, wiring, welding, HVAC, auto paint and body, and graphic design. Scores of teachers, professionals, and students will have their hands on this project. I'd like to take you on our journey every step of the way.  No one in our state is doing something quite this large in efforts such as this to bring the arts to all students. I will be raw and real with you on the planning of this dream.  The first bit of advice I can give you is this: 1. No dream is too big. 2. You must develop a team!  I know this is not something I can do alone.  So I will introduce you to my team as I build it.  I will show you each step I take, beginning to end.  This is my first blog so bear with me as I muddle through it.  This is not a strength...YET!  "No challenge is too big", she says with a laugh.....