North Hi Mount Elementary Fort Worth Independent School District SCHOOL/MUSEUM COLLABORATIONS: A PROFILE OF A MULTI-VISIT PROGRAM AT NORTH HI MOUNT ELEMENTARY IN FORT WORTH A Fort Worth, Texas, elementary school has taken great advantage of its close proximity to three major art museums, developing an extensive multi-visit, multi-museum collaboration. North Hi Mount Elementary is within a twenty minute walking distance of the Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Being able to walk to the museums has allowed the students to make numerous visits throughout the school year without the need for buses. Working collaboratively with her school's principal and teachers and the museum educators from each museum, art teacher Cynde Riddle usually takes an entire grade level at a time to one of the museums. Over the past four years Cynde and her students have made more than 68 visits to the three art museums. Each trip involves coordinating the logistics of getting students to and from the museums, making use of museum-created teacher resource packets on special exhibitions and permanent collection, and working with museum educators to develop special interest visits. According to Cynde, the museum educators are always willing to work with her and offer suggestions, and are they have been receptive to her suggestions and ideas. Cynde finds that the most positive museum experiences occur when the students have some prior knowledge of what they will be viewing in the the museum, followed by a related activity back in the classroom. Whenever she plans a visit, Cynde requests a teacher resource packet or some type of preparatory information on the exhibit. A week or two before the visit Cynde preparing her students by discussing the artist(s), the world in which the artist(s) lived and worked, and the techniques and materials used by the artist(s). In addition, Cynde personally visits and previews exhibits before she takes her students and attends teacher inservices offered by the museums. She has attended the summer institutes of the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts and served as a district leader in the 1996 summer institute. Her personal preparation often comes in handy during the museum visits, as Cynde has been asked to fill in at times when there has been an unexpected shortage of docents. After the trip to the museum, students participate in follow-up activities that may take the form of discussion, writing activities, or art production. Post-visits activities depend on the exhibit and may include journaling, compare/contrast writings, persuasive letters, landscapes, collages, found object sculptures, and multimedia works. One very important activity always completed is a thank-you letter from the students to the museum docents. Teachers, parents, and museum educators notice a difference in students regularly exposed to art museums. Vocabulary levels, content knowledge, and thoughtful questions expressed by the students testify to the advantage of a multiple-visit museum experience. Though few schools have such a fortunate geographic location, every school can benefit from studying the effects of a multi-visit program and can use it as a significant model for the development of their own programs.