Music In Classroom Not Possible At Middle Schools Yet, Board Told

GREENWICH, CT — Middle school students in Greenwich Public Schools will have to wait a little longer before they can participate in band and other music classes in school buildings due to scheduling issues caused by the coronavirus.

The Board of Education received an update on music programs at the elementary and middle schools, as well as Greenwich High School, during their meeting last week.

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Laura Newell, the district's art and music program coordinator, said she was happy to report that in-class playing of instruments and singing would soon resume at Greenwich High School, something that was not immediately available to students at the start of school due to safety precautions and health protocols.

Newell said the high school's band directors, in conjunction with the rest of the music department, worked on a "very thorough" plan that was presented to the school's headmaster, Ralph Mayo, as well as Superintendent Toni Jones and Deputy Superintendent Ann Carabillo.

Students will be able to start playing in band and singing in choir again "as soon as possible," once the school is able to acquire bell covers and masks that are appropriate for each instrument, Newell said.

Board member Karen Kowalski said this was "excellent" news.

"I'm sure our high school chorus, band and orchestra students are thrilled to be able to start playing and working together," Kowalski said, "so I think that's just excellent work."

Middle School

Music programs at the middle school level, however, are a bit more complicated.

Newell said she recently had the opportunity to spend "considerable time" walking through all three of the district's middle schools with Carabillo, reviewing available space and various classroom sizes. Middle school students currently are divided into cohorts to allow for in-person learning each day.

"We found that if you were to service all of our kids that are documented in our [music] program," Newell said, "it would take us probably between two to three weeks to do one 30-minute lesson per child."

Due to this predicted long stretch of time between lessons, they started to look closer at virtual after school options for middle school students, Newell said.

"While we were still hesitant to go down this road," Newell said, "without changing the schedule at the middle school level, we will not be able to successfully see kids within an adequate time period for instruction."

The virtual option could allow students more instruction time, and a recommended band teacher has already signed on to teach band students from all three middle schools, Newell said. She also noted they were still looking for string and chorus teachers.

"Once we get an accurate number of participants for the after school option, then we could better gauge how many times a week it would be and how many kids [would be] in a lesson group," Newell said. "Once we get that information, then we can start drilling down to what the after school virtual option will specifically look like."

Kowalski said she appreciated all the work that had gone into understanding what was possible at the middle school level concerning music programs.

"I know that we started with the premise to not change the class schedule...so in that vein," Kowalski said, "is there another solution or a proposal that we could put forward that could put the music back into the schools as opposed to the virtual program that's going to be started?"

According to Carabillo, this was not possible under the current schedule due to COVID-19 mitigation strategies in place at the middle schools.

"Right now," Carabillo said, "to make sure that we stay with cohorting and the mitigation strategies, which have proved very effective in our schools, we cannot have [music] during the day."

She also noted they could potentially adjust this as the school year progresses, depending on different factors.

Elementary School

At the elementary level, Newell said they narrowed it down to only three buildings that had storage and spatial concerns, which was being addressed. Staffing was also a concern at the elementary schools, Newell said.

"Currently, I have several itinerants in the department," Newell said. "Itinerants are teachers who travel from building to building. We've been trying to limit the travel between buildings."

In order for itinerants to stream into multiple classes at once and limit their travel, monitors are needed for each class. Newell said the district currently needs three monitors.

According to Marc D'Amico, the district's director of K-8 curriculum, the monitors they would hire are basically substitute teachers, and there is currently a shortage of those across the district.

Were they to hire three substitutes as monitors, that could take away substitutes available to cover general education classrooms in the district, D'Amico said.

"This is a daily occurrence that building principals are struggling with across the board in finding enough people to supervise children on a daily basis," D'Amico said, "and I suspect it will only get more troublesome as we move into the colder weather and the flu season."

He also noted the district was "getting closer," but staffing is "a little bit of an issue that we have to work through."

Board Reactions

A number of board members expressed gratitude toward district officials in attendance for working to bring music back to school buildings.

Board secretary Karen Hirsh said she understood returning to music programs would not be perfect, but she was grateful as she knows how important music is to many students in the district.

"I am beyond grateful to you guys for all the hard work that's being done to bring this back in some shape or form," Hirsh said.

Board member Peter Sherr expressed concern that part of the schools' curriculum was not being taught.

"The administrators are responsible to teach our curriculum," Sherr said, "and they don't have the authority to decide not to teach it."

Sherr said the issue would need to come back to the Board of Education, who would go through "a process of revising and removing that curriculum if it's not going to be taught." He later noted they could possibly rethink the schedule by January.

Kathleen Stowe, the board's vice-chair, also expressed gratitude to district officials for moving the process of bringing music to school buildings forward.

"I'm proud to have my three kids in school every day," Stowe said, "and they do like music, but I like that we're moving in the right direction."