VALLEY REPORT SCHOOL LAYOFFS : ...

I think it’s obscene. We have been sweating blood and these kids have been killing themselves to try to make something happen musically here, and now they might just put all the instruments back in mothballs and wait until they have a little more money. There isn’t any other word but obscene for that.

When I took over here two years ago, the music program really had been let go. It was very small in number and only a few kids knew that it was here. We started from scratch.

When I started, we had a marching band of less than 30 people and we were not competitive. Last fall, we marched 72 people and we placed first in every competition. We have a concert band that does nothing but classic music. We have two full choirs, each with more than 40 students.

I have a student who came to me a year ago and said, “I have had real problems being in school, with drugs and alcohol.” He said he was in a 12-step recovery program and had always dreamed of playing the saxophone.

This was a kid who hadn’t passed a class in years. But I said, “If you are determined, let’s do it.” I started teaching him. He has stayed sober; he has worked hard enough that he is the best alto sax we have, and his grades are improving every semester.

Music gave this kid a reason to come to school. He has never had any interest in academics, and if he hadn’t had music to look forward to, I am not sure he would have had a reason to get out of that bed every day.

In music, you are constantly trying to better yourself on a particular instrument. You have to learn efficiency and time management. You have to sit down by yourself alone with your instrument.

But it’s not just the discipline and the work ethic. Music teaches a sensitivity to art, to culture. It uses both the right- and the left-brain skills. It teaches students to be creative. The people who say you can cut music obviously know nothing about education or cognitive development. Music incorporates every part of you--the physical, intellectual and the emotional. It can’t be compared to any other activity.