Celebrating more than 50 years of service, historically Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) is the borough’s leading nonprofit organization supporting artists and cultural groups in all disciplines. BAC is committed to serving the arts ecosystem through grants, professional development, cultural heritage programming, and arts education provided via distance learning. By creating and supporting cultural events and platforms for Brooklynites, BAC provides forums for critical thinking and self-expression, enriches Brooklyn’s cultural landscape, and generates experiences that expand horizons.

BAC’s AIE Department is a creative powerhouse, enriching the Brooklyn community through accessible arts education. Our programs empower individuals by fostering creativity, cultural understanding, and self-expression. We integrate arts into the community through our Creative Pathways, Our Voices, Catalyst, and Global Rhythms school programs, Creative Aging residencies at older adult centers, and community programming across the borough. This programming nurtures critical thinking and innovation, creates artistic engagement, and enhances well-being and social interaction. We seek to energize neighborhoods, communities, and schools to revitalize public spaces and foster unity. Together, we create a vibrant Brooklyn where art transforms lives. Learn more here.

Our Educational Goals

• Foster creativity and imagination
• Expand verbal and non-verbal communication skills
• Enhance capacities for critical thinking and problem solving
• Fortify social-emotional skills (e.g. risk-taking, collaboration)
• Provide student-centered, culturally responsive teaching

Our Mission: Empowering & Enriching
Our programs empower and enrich artists and communities by connecting them to one another. We employ artists to produce dynamic, creative, and educational programs in schools, senior centers, and local community spaces that open pathways for relationships, resources, and inspiration. Our programs nurture the transformative and generative power of the arts at the intersection of creative learning and labor.

Our Vision: Nurturing & Liberating
We envision a creative-learning ecosystem that is nurturing, liberating, and responsive. This community network — including students and artists of all ages, cultures, genders and economic means — makes opportunities for artistic expression and professional development accessible, empowering, and transformative.

Our Values: Honoring & Collaborating
We value creative learning approaches of cultural responsiveness, inclusive collaboration, empathy, respect, and excellence through authenticity. We believe these approaches empower artists and learners by fostering the safety to be problem-solvers, facilitating the inspiration to be creative, activating the tools to be adaptive, strengthening the support to be brave, and unleashing the freedom to be unique.

Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC) is hiring a versatile set of Brooklyn-based Teaching Artists (TA’s) for residency opportunities in K-12 classrooms and Older Adult Centers across Brooklyn in 2026!

BAC pairs Teaching Artists with residencies in a variety of disciplines at schools and older adult centers throughout Brooklyn. Residencies are approximately 10-14 weeks and will take place between January and June 2026. BAC TA’s have access to professional development opportunities, and through BAC and Arts in Education Roundtable and Materials for the Arts.

We are primarily seeking applications for:

• In-School Residencies (K-12 in-school and afterschool residencies)
• Creative Aging: SU- CASA (older adult center residencies)

Our programming spans artistic mediums including: Theater & Performance, Music, General Dance, Global Dance, Visual Arts, Literary Arts, Digital Media, and STEAM. We serve learners that speak languages other than English, including Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Ukrainian, and more. We also serve neurodivergent learners and learners with disabilities.

Info Sessions & Workshops:
Please join us for any of the following Prospective TA events. RSVP is required to attend, please see more information and RSVP for all events here: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/2026-teaching-artist-info-sessions-4563443

Digital Info Sessions

• September 5th, 10:30am-12:30pm, Zoom
• September 15th, 5:30pm-7pm, Zoom

In Person Info Sessions

• September 10th, 12:30pm-2:30pm, Coney Island Branch of Brooklyn Public Library
• September 18th, 12:30pm-2:30pm, Stone Avenue Branch of Brooklyn Public Library

Digital CV & Lesson Plan Workshops

• September 12th, 10am-12pm, Zoom
• September 19th, 12:30pm-2:30pm

Digital Office Hour

• September 22nd, 12:30-1:30pm

Desired Applicants are TA’s that:

• Can teach in English AND another language, particularly Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish.
• Have experience with Social Emotional Learning, Culturally Responsive Education, Trauma Informed Teaching, and Abolitionist Focused Education, STEAM education practices.
• Have experience teaching English Language Learners and neurodiverse, disabled, and D75 cohorts.
• Have experience working with, and are sensitive to the needs of Older Adults.
• Have availability Monday’s-Friday’s, January-June, for in school programming (8am-2:30pm) and/or after school programming (2pm-5:30pm), and/or availability March-June for OAC programming Monday-Friday (10am-4pm).
• Represent the populations of students that we are serving. We serve students of the following identities and seek to add TA’s to our roster that identify similarly: Black, Hispanic, and Asian students, LGBTQ+ students, immigrant students, disabled and neurodiverse students.
• Can teach one or multiple arts mediums.
• Can teach in a speciality medium. While we are accepting applications from TAs that can teach any of our listed artistic mediums, this year we are particularly looking for TA’s focused in STEAM & robotics, instrumental music, musical theatre, and global dance.

School Programs
Our school residency programs foster creativity and artistic expression for K–12 students, their supporters, and other community members through a broad range of disciplines that represent Brooklyn’s diversity and excellence.

• Run approximately 10-14 weeks (with exceptions) from January-June 2026.
• In school (8am-2:30pm) and afterschool (2pm-5:30pm)
• Pay Rate: $85/hr + stipends for planning, travel and professional development
• Applicants for this program must have experience working with youth in K-12 schools
• Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States
• W2 part time employment

Older Adult Programs
Our creative aging programs provide opportunities for seniors to actively express themselves creatively, socialize with a culturally engaged collective of senior citizens, engage in cultural performances, and master techniques in a variety of arts disciplines.

• Requirement of 20 teaching hours
• Flexible TA-determined schedule created in collaboration with the OAC
• Programming must take place between March and June 2026
• Pay Rate: $6,000 fee (inclusive of travel, planning, and PD) + a $2,000 materials budget
• Applicants for this program must have experience working with older adult learners
• Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States
• W2 part time employment

We are hosting a single application for both school and older adult programs, please apply here: https://brooklynartscouncil.submittable.com/submit/b555179b-a6fe-4d8c-9a05-d58789bf7e5d/teaching-artist-application-form?step=submission

Info:

• Applications OPEN September 4, 2025
• Applications CLOSE September 28, 2025 at 11:59pm EST
• Applicants are notified of selection for a teaching demo in November
• See our Application Guidelines for more information: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e94b646cc27632b1385f918/t/68a89a43cea86605221572c3/1755880003045/2026+Teaching+Artist+Open+Call+and+Application+Guidelines.pdf
• Please see our FAQ for questions: https://www.brooklynartscouncil.org/what-we-do-arts-in-education-faq
• Email artsined@brooklynartscouncil.org with any additional questions

Brooklyn Arts Council strives to a foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where our employees and volunteers – whatever their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education, or ability – feel valued and respected.

We are committed to being a nondiscriminatory organization that provides equal opportunity for employment and advancement in our programs and at our worksites. We respect and value diverse life experiences and heritages, and work to ensure that all voices are valued and heard. We are committed to modeling diversity and inclusion for the arts community in Brooklyn, and to maintaining an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all.