Campus in the fall
Kristi Johnson

Kristi Johnson

Comprehensive Arts Planning Program (CAPP) Specialist, Outreach

kristi.johnson@pcae.k12.mn.us  |  763-279-4183

Kristi Johnson is a theater K-12 educator, teaching artist, youth theater director, arts administrator, and strategic planner. Her career has spanned working in youth theater companies (Honolulu Theater for Youth, SteppingStone Theatre for Youth, Children’s Theatre Company, Stages Theatre Company) and working as a full-time theater specialist in school districts (Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis), focusing on play creation, creative program development, drama arts integration, and issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. She was named Sun Post Reader’s Choice Teacher of the Year for the Brooklyn Center School District in 2011. Her extensive experience in youth program development, school-day and arts-school arts programming, teaching artist residencies, and strategic planning facilitation uniquely position her to lead Perpich’s Comprehensive Arts Planning Program (CAPP).

Kristi’s Perpich story began in 2005 as an organizational grant awardee in the Arts and Schools as Partners (ASAP) program. She extended her connection with Perpich, serving as a member of the Arts Education Consortium of Minnesota, from 2006-2008. Then in 2010 and 2011, she served as an art coach and teaching artist in the Professional Development and Resource Program’s ACE Theater program. In 2018, she was hired as the CAPP Specialist, to restart the Comprehensive Arts Planning Program. She has led two CAPP cohorts (2019-2021, 2021-2023) of eight school districts each, helping districts assess their current arts programming, which leads to envisioning and implementing an arts education strategic plan.