How can an educational theater project change school district policy?

How can an interview-based educational theater project inspire a school district to adopt policy that will grow the inclusion of the arts in its academic classrooms and increase the arts-based instructional capacity of its teachers?

As a theater teaching artist in the Alaska State Council on the Arts Artists In Schools (AIS) Program, I work often as a visiting artist in schools around the state. In December 2012-January 2013, I’ll be leading an interview-based theater project at Kenny Lake School in Copper River School District. How can I design a process and products with the goal of increasing the long-term presence of the arts in the school district’s staff skills, in its curricula, and in its policy?

Strategies to explore:

• With the input of teachers, students, and community members, formulate a central question for the interview project--a central "story"--which engages a diverse local population and/or confronts a current community concern.
• Target community power brokers - such as school board members and local policy makers - as interviewees for the project. 
• Include teachers and administrators in authentic participation in the project, deepening buy-in and understanding of the interpersonal, intrapersonal, and academic power of arts engagement. 
• Consider ‘happening’-style processes, such as rehearsals and design projects in public spaces, to attract community attention to students’ artistic work. 
• Facilitate an evening/weekend community arts workshop which engages local community members in participation in the student project. 
• Incorporate students into the documentation process - photos, video, web postings - in order to further multiply arts experiences as well as to generate more evidence of the value of this project. 
• Create a groundwork for future collaborative arts processes like this one, and invite students to take leadership in advocating for support in their own arts practices. 
• Incorporate an in-process arts activity into a school board meeting agenda, inviting students to function as advocates at the meeting. 
• Generate documentation of the final products to be disseminated, with the help of students, in various physical and on-line forums.