By Mike Szymanski | No-Ho/Toluca Lake Patch | http://bit.ly/mzJjli
Jessica Johnson and Stephen McDonough (left) with some of their young award-winning musicians. Credit Mike Szymanski
Walter Reed Band Boosters |
May 3, 2011/12:22am - The Walter Reed Middle School chamber orchestra, concert choir and wind ensemble brought home top honors after competing this past weekend against high schools and bands from other states at the regional Heritage Music Festival in San Francisco. Two of three of the teachers in the award-winning program are among the music teachers being cut next year in a district-wide budget-reducing measure.
“We took more students than we have ever taken before to this competition, and they were great, we got some of the highest rankings we’ve ever received,” said instrumental music teacher Stephen McDonough. “it was once-again, a nice validation of what we do.”
They took 129 eighth graders from Reed, split up between the Wind Ensemble led by teacher Jessica Johnson, the Concert Choir led by teacher Janice Kueppers and the Chamber Orchestra led by McDonough. It is Johnson and McDonough who were given Reduction in Force notices by the Los Angeles Unified School District, notifying them that their jobs may not exist next year. They received the pink slips only one week after the three teachers were honored as having the most innovative music teaching program in the district via the BRAVO Awards.
“The kids are competing against high schoolers and still they come home with rankings at a high levels,” said McDonough, who brought a 46-member orchestra. “It’s a nice acknowledgement that we’re doing something right.”
The Adjudication Awards given out a the Heritage Music Festival are rated by fellow music teachers and college professors and bands came from Idaho and Nevada. The Chamber Orchestra and Concert Choir took home superior ratings, winning Gold Awards, while the Wind Ensemble received an excellent Silver Award, and also took a First Place award.
The announcement of the cuts in the music program outraged parents at Reed, where 12 teachers and the librarian also face layoffs.
“This is not the kind of program that should be cut,” McDonough said. “People want to send their kids to our school because of what we do.”
McDonough said he is trying to increase awareness of the benefits of a music program at schools, and plans to make a presentation Tuesday night at the LAUSD Music Coalition Advocacy Action Plan Meeting.
‘Even in this darkness of the budget cuts, there is a way to make this work,” McDonough said. “There has been 50 percent cut of music staff in all the schools and that is still only three percent of all the teachers who got RIF notices. It is an unproportional cut.”
But, McDonough said he plans to make a case that music programs have helped many students who would never have stayed in school otherwise. “We know that the kids in the music program also get better test scores, and it gets kids involved in school and improves their self esteem.”
He pointed out that music classes help with class sizes. “If I have 35 students in my class, that’s not good. I often have 45 to 60 for a full orchestra.”
McDonough said, “We haven’t asked for any funding for the music programs because a lot of it is self-sustaining through the shows we put on and the PTSA funding.”
He said parents need to get more involved in saving the music program. He strongly urged them to come to the meeting on Tuesday to figure how to get the word out.
- The LAUSD Music Coalition Advocacy Action Plan Meeting by the Los Angeles Secondary Music Teachers Association is http://www.lasmta.org/ scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Central Los Angeles High School #9 at 450 N. Grand Ave.
smf: The line "Two of three of the teachers in the award-winning program are among the music teachers being cut next year in a district-wide budget-reducing measure” puts the truth to the fiction that these decisions are somehow made locally by school-site-councils or the principal and the school community. This is part of the test scores trump all mind-set from the school board and superintendent’s office. I was a Reed Parent, my daughter a music student at Reed. Excuse the hyperbole but the Reed music program is a key component that makes Reed Middle School the Best Middle School in the Universe and – along with the Drill Team and a truly dedicated education team of teachers, administration, staff, parents and students - the Super Glue that cements the IHP Gifted Program, The Honors Program, ELL, Special Needs and all the rest to the general school population.
No comments:
Post a Comment