Re: 4th Grade Orchestra?
Don't underestimate the arts climate in Janesville.
The MacDowell Music Group has a long and auspicious history, and broad community support. It organizes teachers, taps into other local groups like the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra, The Janesville Performing Arts Center and the Stateline Harmony Chorus (who are attached to the national group the Sweet Adelines) and provides scholarship funds for students.
The strings program and other orchestra programs in the school district don't replace the need of students to have private tutors. They feed the need for tutors, whom I would surmise will make noise about anything that inhibits music study and curbs the number of students who need their skills.
Add to those voices the parents and the arts-conscious, and you've got an uphill battle. As reasonable as it may be to push strings classes to the junior high level, a lot of people will see it as the beginning of slippery-slope inroads to cutting music and arts funding.
The MacDowell Music Group has a long and auspicious history, and broad community support. It organizes teachers, taps into other local groups like the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra, The Janesville Performing Arts Center and the Stateline Harmony Chorus (who are attached to the national group the Sweet Adelines) and provides scholarship funds for students.
The strings program and other orchestra programs in the school district don't replace the need of students to have private tutors. They feed the need for tutors, whom I would surmise will make noise about anything that inhibits music study and curbs the number of students who need their skills.
Add to those voices the parents and the arts-conscious, and you've got an uphill battle. As reasonable as it may be to push strings classes to the junior high level, a lot of people will see it as the beginning of slippery-slope inroads to cutting music and arts funding.
posted by Jane Bellwether @ 12:24 PM
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