Ninety-nine-year-old Thomas Naegele retired from teaching industrial art at the HS of Art & Design in Manhattan 32 years ago, but his legacy lives on in two generations of art teachers that he inspired in his wake.

Jennifer Figueroa believes that anyone can be an artist. And the Bronx native, now in her third year of teaching art at PS 178 in Co-op City, knows that an expansive definition of "artist" helps kids take pride in all kinds of creativity.

Forty art educators representing all five boroughs had their work on display in January at El Barrio's Artspace PS 109 in East Harlem at the first New York City Art Teachers Association exhibit since the pandemic began.

Members of the school community at PS 18 in the South Bronx have transformed a brick wall into a mural reflecting the diversity and values that make the UFT United Community School and its neighborhood a vibrant community.

Arts programs may be on the chopping block this fall as school principals look for ways to cut costs in the face of Mayor Adams’ school budget cuts. But for many educators, the pandemic has proven that arts instruction is more important than ever.

Colleagues and students create a mosaic mural to remember Rulx Dagus, a paraprofessional at P 369K in Park Slope, Brooklyn, who died of COVID-19.

Collaboration among three arts teachers and their classes at PS 295 in Brooklyn led to a 90-second commercial. They came up with the idea and designed a product in art class, composed a jingle in music class and wrote a script and acted out the...

School social worker Maureen Eigenfeld has made art the cornerstone of her therapeutic work with students at the Bronx Writing Academy, a United Community School in Concourse Village.

The New York City Art Teachers Association/UFT (NYCATA) challenge asked art teachers and their students — from elementary to high school — to create visual images of their feelings and concerns this school year. 


Art teacher Yolanda Lyn considers art a means to emotional well-being. Teaching remotely has challenged her to create lessons that will help all her students at PS 194 in Harlem continue to feel connected to their classmates and to the world.