About me
Kyla McKoll is ArtsConnection (AC)'s Director of Professional Learning, and a multidisciplinary artist. McKoll has a Masters from NYU in Educational Theater, focused on educational equity and community building. Her 20+ years in arts education have been spent as an arts educator teaching theater, movement, and puppetry in public schools, working with diverse learners, coaching and facilitating PD, and administering programs. McKoll has worked on multiple educational research arts education programs: Creating Bridges, DELLTA (Developing English Language through the Arts), Teach with GIVE (Growing Inclusivity for Vibrant Engagement) and E.A.S.E. (Everyday Arts for Special Education) for which she has been an administrator, curriculum developer, facilitator, and a teacher coach. She has been the lead developer of AC’s equity pedagogy for Joyful & Liberatory Arts Education. McKoll has been a featured presenter at multiple professional conferences & organizations including the National Guild for Community Arts Education, NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, Connected Arts Network, Arts for All Abilities, Everyone Reading, and NYC Public Schools, and has extensive training in teaching students with disabilities, early childhood education, trauma informed, inclusive and anti-racist practices in education.
Rachel Watts is a multidisciplinary arts educator who advocates for meaningful and equitable programming for young people. She is currently the Executive Director at ArtsConnection Inc. in New York City. This non-profit provides multi-arts residencies in public schools, designs and facilitates arts education professional learning workshops for adults, and also engages teens during out-of-school time in their own constructed experience of the arts. Watts worked as Director of Education at Ballet Hispanico in New York City and Director of The MYC Youth Center in San Rafael California, where she created a state-of-the-art facility focused on developing teen leadership skills through the arts and technology. Her introduction to non-profit Arts Education was in the education department at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Watts has taught leadership in the Arts Management and Entrepreneurship MA program at the New School and also taught undergraduate students in the Art Education Program at City College in Harlem. Watts served on the board of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and has been a featured speaker in several settings including the Art in Education Practicing Hope Summit at Harvard University, at the National Guild Conference on Community Arts Education and as Keynote Speaker at the Civic Engagement International Symposium at the National Koahsiung Center for the Arts in Weiwuying, Taiwan. Watts was recently named a 2024 Crain’s New York Notable Black Leader.
