In my April column, I wrote about the urgency of this moment — that children's access to a full, creative education is increasingly at risk, and that we will not meet this moment in isolation. This month, I want to tell you what that collective effort looked like in practice: two trips to Portland City Council, a teaching artist, and my child.

The Portland City Council is considering updates to the Arts Education and Access Fund — updates that could name arts education organizations as a distinct funding priority and create dedicated structural support for teaching artist programming. When I learned the full council would be voting, I knew we needed to be in that room.

Arts Advocate Carol Smith, ALNW Executive Director Briana Linden and Teaching Artist Jill Giedt at Portland City Hall

I went first to committee, then to the full council. Both times, I wasn't alone.

In committee, Jill Giedt, one of our extraordinary teaching artists, testified alongside me. Jill is a dancer, choreographer, and theater director who investigates classical ballet through the lens of African American figures and Black cultural resilience. She spoke not from policy papers, but from the classroom — from the specific, irreplaceable experience of watching a child's face when they realize what is possible.

She talked about what it means for a child to look up and see her: a Black ballerina. How that moment of recognition — someone like me can do this — opens something in a young person that no lesson plan alone can reach. How it expands their sense of what they can become.

That is what we mean when we say teaching and cultural artists are essential — not supplemental, not enrichment, but essential.

For the full council presentation, I brought my child Astrid.

Astrid is a 7th grader at da Vinci Arts Middle School who stood at a microphone in front of Portland's city council and told them, plainly, what they needed to hear:

"It shouldn't matter what neighborhood a kid is in or if they can lottery into a school that offers the arts. All kids deserve to learn through the arts."

Astrid talked about their creative writing teacher, Ms. Conner, and how having a guide makes space for your best work and unexpected ideas. They talked about how artists show kids that they are seen and heard — that there are so many ways to express what's inside you, even when words don’t come easily.

This is what it looks like when the people most affected by a decision show up to make the case themselves.

Here is what I want our community to understand about this policy moment: the infrastructure to deliver this work already exists. At Arts for Learning NW, we served 40,000 students last year through 125 rostered teaching and cultural artists. We handle the vetting, the training, the district relationships, the compliance. We are not trying to build something new; we are asking for investment in what is already working.

I came up through this work believing that the arts give young people agency and voice. Watching Jill testify — bringing the full weight of her artistry and her experience into a council chamber — reminded me that the same is true for all of us. And watching Astrid step to that microphone reminded me why we keep showing up.

I hope you'll add your voice to this work. Every room we enter together is one more room that hears us.

— Briana

Astrid Linden, daVinci Arts Middle School student, testifying to

Portland City Council