Music Controversy Erupts At Octorara

Octorara kids turned out Monday evening to protest rumored changes to Octorara's music program.

By Magdalena Stuehrmann

“Save our Band!”

That was the cry taken up by the band students and their parents that arrived early at the Octorara School Board meeting this Monday.

Students and parents attended the meeting in order to request further information and express their views on the proposed changes to the music program in the Primary Learning Center through the 8th grade.

Students came early to the meeting, carrying posters that declared their love for various aspects of the music program at Octorara; “Jazz Band Rox” and “We <3 Band” were among the most prominent.

Parents of students in the program had been alerted to the upcoming changes through an e-mail sent by Octorara’s music department faculty.

The members of the department were concerned about the changes that were proposed for the upcoming year regarding teachers’ schedules, and worried that the changes would negatively impact the students’ learning.

Parents and students organized their protest to the changes and their effects on the music program to ensure that the school board was aware of their opinions, and, hopefully, would try to find another way to solve the problems of low library staff and a continued excellent music program.

The one main concern that students, parents and teachers have is the proposed schedule for a specific music instructor. The proposed schedule would have this teacher, who is well recognized as highly talented, and is well-loved by the children, spending two days out of a six day cycle in the library, assisting the students during their time blocks in the library and, at the same time, providing the students with a “music experience.”

This is presented as a way to increase exposure of students in K-4th grades to music.

The concern of the students and parents, however, is the fact that it will be pulling a very talented teacher away from his time with students who are either having a music class or a rehearsal or lesson on a particular instrument.

The concern is that, while the “music experience” is being offered to supplement this time, it will not be sufficient to make up for the time lost in regular classes.

Students, parents and community members are concerned that this loss of real practice time and normal musical instruction (a one third reduction from the previous amount of time provided, according to the music department) will negatively impact the capability of students who are learning to play musical instruments.

Jazz Band and the Christmas Ensemble, two well-loved programs, are both run mostly outside of the regular curriculum, and expose students to new ways of playing their instruments and to more performance opportunities.

The concern is that, with less real instruction time available to students through the proposed changes, the quality of their playing will suffer, and the Jazz Band and Christmas Ensemble will not be feasible as the students will lack enough class time instruction on their instruments to be able to play at the level that the community now enjoys.

Along the same lines, a further concern in the community is that, once the students reach the higher levels of playing, such as those in high school, they will lack sufficient knowledge and ability to meet the requirements of these upper levels; due to a proposed decrease in real practice time, students simply will not be able to learn as much as they are right now.

The feared result of this is that not only will students lack the skills to play as will be expected of them in the higher levels, but also that their future teachers will have to waste a lot of time “catching them up” to the level that they should already achieved, before the teachers are able to move on to their own curriculums.

Due mainly to these concerns, the band parents and students, like those of the sports players when changes were occurring to the sports programs, arrived at the board meeting to voice their concerns. Several parents spoke and most of the students remained throughout the meeting to show their support.

The superintendent, Dr. Thomas Newcome gave a presentation at the very end of the meeting describing his take on the proposed changes and the draft schedules.

The meeting, however, did not end on the best note of cooperation and mutual understanding.

Dr. Newcome, through an unfortunate choice of quotations, indirectly referred to the parents who had brought their children to the meeting to show their support as using their children as “pawns” while quoting the contents of an e-mail that he had received, a quotation which insulted and angered many of the parents in the audience.

The concerned parents and students left the meeting disappointed by the reaction of the administration, though both sides of the discussion seem willing to continuing discussing the matter in the hopes of achieving a compromise which ensures the best possible solution for the students.