Email

26-06NDCover On the Cover: “Crayons” by Ava K., then a fifth-grader and student of Noelia Martinez Voigt, Greenfield Elementary School, Greenfield CUSD 10. Created for a lesson on value (how light or dark a color is) and expressive painting. Image courtesy of Noelia Martinez-Voigt.Front Page November/December 2026

By Theresa Kelly Gegen

Welcome to a colorful Illinois School Board Journal. This issue looks a little different as we celebrate the fine arts in our public schools and encourage arts education in Illinois.

In late August, the Journal asked art teachers from across the state to send student visual art so that we could share it with our readers. Not that they were busy or anything! Many responded, and for that I am grateful beyond measure. You will see their student art on many of these pages.

Later, we opened a treasure box of even more art. Susan Tiemstra, Student Art Show Coordinator for the Illinois Art Education Association (IAEA), shared the award-winning entries for the association's 2026-2027 Student Art Show. We are thankful and delighted.

The IAEA Student Art Show will once again make an inspiring appearance at the 2026 Joint Annual Conference in Chicago, hosted by the Illinois Association of School Boards, the Illinois Association of School Administrators, and the Illinois Association of School Business Officials. The Conference will also welcome student performing arts. Scheduled as of October 1 are Oswego CUSD 308, East High School Jazz Ensemble; Sycamore CUSD 427, High School Chamber Choir; Prairie Grove SD 46, Middle School Jazz Band; and Chicago Public Schools, Lincoln Park High School Chamber Orchestra

Whether you experience student fine arts in person, in these pages, or in your school hallways, please reach out and thank your schools’ art educators. They are magical.

I wish we could have used every piece of student art that we saw. We just don’t have enough pages. Many thanks to IASB’s Lori Grant and Darrin Burnett. Artists in their own right, they have contributed their voices by writing for this issue of the Journal and, on top of that, helped secure the art that you see in these pages. We hope you enjoy the finest work of the Illinois student artists.


Theresa Kelly Gegen is Editor of the Illinois School Board Journal and Director of Communications/Editorial Services for IASB. 

Art On the Cover: “Crayons” by Ava K., then a fifth-grader and student of Noelia Martinez Voigt, Greenfield Elementary School, Greenfield CUSD 10. Created for a lesson on value (how light or dark a color is) and expressive painting. Image courtesy of Noelia Martinez-Voigt.