What's Happened Since May???

You might have noticed that we haven't been blogging much - actually not at all since May. Laura has been so focused on her role as art coordinator..... Art Kits, Curriculum Adjustments, Supporting Teachers & Administrators.... the lists are endless. As for Matt he's been right there partnering as always and then out of the left-field he was told he was being moved to teach mornings at one of the high schools. Then there's the three younger Grundler's, our kids, trying to make it through the summer without their normal activities and friend time..... leading up to a remote school start. It's been wild and we know you are in the same boat. We're all doing the best we can! We managed to keep the chat going and have worked on a really big "secret" project but we haven't been able to present much and we put the podcast on the back burner. 2020 is a year to re-evaluate priorities.

So where are we now, we are finding a groove, our kids are back in school face to face and doing limited activities - I wouldn't call it a new normal but we are finding ways to make this current routine work. As I write this post, I'm in the car waiting on our youngest to get out of practice, again just trying to make things work.

Let's go back to that little teaser above....... "secret"............ project? In January, we started thinking about The Creativity Department, what we loved about it, the time it took, how we were managing it alongside being parents and educators. We considered the future of the chat and podcast, should we continue on. We both LOVE the community/pln - aka "art family" we've built but it does take a lot of time and resources away from our family. The question really boiled down to....... do we keep it going and if we do ...... how? We had to find more balance for our family. In the end, we said yes, we have to keep going, the compelling messages from teachers across the globe telling us just how much the community meant to them was the deciding factor; however, we knew needed help. Therefore, we decided to start looking for a partner, we gave ourselves until July 1, 2020, to find support for our work, but we didn't want just any partner. We had to have one that aligned with our vision and values about supporting art teachers.

We reached out to DavisArt.com and started a conversation, they were everything we could hope for in a team. A company founded on supporting art educators and with a history dating back to 1901 - reading through their mission page then meeting with their team we knew we had found a PERFECT fit.

So as of tonight, (10/22/20) we have officially partnered with Davis Publications _ DavisArt.com . The biggest change you'll see starting next week is the podcast improvements and new name - K12ArtChat the Podcast. We look forward to all the new adventures to come and all the exciting learning opportunities we can bring to you with this fabulous partnership!