There is a quiet revolution underway in Lafayette Parish classrooms. Not a shift away from academic growth, but a deeper investment in how imagination drives it. Students who once sat silent now dance the orbit of the solar system. Struggling readers paint the Louisiana wetlands before they write about them. A child who rarely speaks to her peers stands and delivers a freestyle poem with the confidence of a headliner.
This shift isn’t abstract. It is being lived and led through a partnership between the Lafayette Parish School System and the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Together, they are not simply adding arts into classrooms. They are transforming the very definition of what an engaging classroom can be.
At the helm of this transformation are two leaders: Bree Sargent, Education Director at AcA, and Kim Thibodeaux, the newly appointed LPSS Arts, Music, and Media Specialist. Sargent brings clarity, conviction, and a deep-rooted belief that the arts can unlock everything from language acquisition to emotional regulation. Thibodeaux, new to the role but not to the mission, is a visionary, relentlessly fired up to expand access and embed the arts across all grade levels and disciplines.
Their combined leadership marks a new chapter, building on the fierce, foundational work of Paget Guidry, who served as the district’s Arts Specialist for 13 years. It is because of her steadfast belief in the power of the arts that today’s expansion is even possible. The bridge between what was and what will be runs through her legacy.
The Numbers Paint the Picture
In the past year alone, over 21,000 students engaged in 140 distinct arts experiences. Nearly 9,000 classroom sessions were held across LPSS, impacting almost 1800 classrooms.
Every single student in grades PreK through 8th received a professional arts experience, off-campus, in-person, and at no cost to families. From live musicals to interactive symphonies and gallery installations, these are not just field trips. They are curriculum extensions, delivered through movement, music, and metaphor.
PACE: When the Arts Become the Lesson
The Primary Academic Creative Experiences (PACE) program anchors this movement. Designed for grades PreK through 3rd, PACE places trained teaching artists in classrooms weekly to deliver lessons that integrate visual art, dance, science, and social studies.
The impact is staggering.
In 2023, nearly all PACE classrooms demonstrated measurable academic growth through arts-integrated learning. Educators across the district observed deeper comprehension of science and vocabulary, particularly among ESL students, along with rising confidence and stronger classroom engagement.
One educator observed, “The students now sit in the struggle a little longer before asking for help. They also have higher expectations of themselves.” Another added, “PACE allows students to express themselves as they are learning more about who they are each day.”
This is not a program. It is a pedagogical philosophy. A belief that how a student learns is just as important as what they learn.
Access for All: No Exceptions
Arts in Education in Lafayette Parish is made possible through a braided funding model that includes Title I, Title IV, general fund allocations, and donations and sponsorships raised by the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
This layered support structure allows LPSS and AcA to deliver a full spectrum of creative programming across the district:
- Arts Experiences for All, which guarantees every student in grades PreK through 8th the chance to attend off-campus performances and gallery visits at no cost to families
- PACE (Primary Academic Creative Experiences), which places teaching artists in every PreK through 3rd grade classroom for weekly arts-integrated lessons tied to science and social studies
- In-School Performances, which bring professional musicians, dancers, storytellers, and theatre artists directly into schools
- The Teaching Artist Program, which supports deeper, often multi-day residencies that immerse students in hands-on visual and performing arts experiences
Together, these initiatives ensure that access to meaningful, standards-connected arts experiences is not reserved for a few schools, but is embedded across the district.
That access reaches beyond school walls at the annual Student Arts Expo, a community-wide celebration of student artists in all disciplines. Held in partnership with Downtown Lafayette, the event transforms the heart of the city into a vibrant showcase of young talent, featuring outdoor performances by school bands and choirs, art exhibitions in businesses and along sidewalks, hands-on activities for families, and a bustling student artist market. In its most recent year, the Expo drew more than 6,500 attendees, making it one of the largest celebrations of public school art in the state.
By the time a Lafayette Parish student enters high school, they will have engaged in up to 80 foundational art lessons and 11 cultural arts experiences. These are not extra. They are essential
A Vision Worth Fighting For
This kind of systemic access does not happen by accident. It takes strategy. It takes urgency. And it takes leadership with vision.
Together, LPSS and AcA are reimagining what learning can look like when creativity is treated not as a supplement, but as a foundation. The infrastructure they have built ensures that every performance, every residency, and every gallery tour is purposeful, tied to academic outcomes, and made accessible to all.
As Thibodeaux puts it, “We’re not just teaching creativity. We’re using creativity to teach everything else.”
It is a shift that extends far beyond lesson plans. It is about rewiring how we measure student success, not only through what they know, but through how they express, connect, and solve.
And in Lafayette Parish, that is the vision. One worth scaling. One worth sustaining. One worth fighting for.
A Model for the Nation
In an age where school systems across the country are trimming arts budgets, Lafayette Parish is doing the opposite. It is investing in the belief that creativity is not a luxury, but a right. Not an elective, but an engine.
The LPSS and AcA partnership proves that a public school system can offer both rigor and imagination, both standards and soul. It proves that opportunity is not about access to information. It is about access to inspiration.
And in this parish, students are not just learning to learn. They are learning to see. To create. To imagine a world bigger than the one they were handed.
And that changes everything.
