As we, Open Door Arts, entered the 2021-2022 school year we were excited to return to in-person instruction and assumed that the greatest impact of COVID on our students and schools was behind us. While we carefully prepared to resume programming in our schools, we did not anticipate the extent of the toll that social isolation, remote learning, and interruptions in services had on our students. 

They had missed out on critical developmental, academic, artistic, and social experiences and had become used to life and learning with their “camera off.” As they continued to adjust to in-person school, students showed tremendous strength, courage, and trust while participating in our programs and opened themselves up to sharing and connecting with each other. 
We are so proud of their resilience, vulnerability, and the ways they harnessed their experiences, ideas, and emotions into creative forms of expression. It was equally wonderful to witness their own pride in themselves, what they created, and how they contributed. 

Similarly, we are proud of and grateful to our Teaching Artists, who demonstrated tremendous creativity, inventiveness, and compassion as they showed up for each other and their students and found ways to adapt and readapt to meet the challenges the year presented. Last year showed us that we are still at the beginning of a long road to recovery. As always, the arts continue to be our greatest assets, teachers, and tools moving forward in support of our students and schools.

Download the ODA Annual Report >