The following is a letter I wrote to a parent about the reasons we are not having a competitive marching band in Tenino. There are still more reasons why, but these are the big ones.
Dear Parent.
I'm sorry. I explained in class the next day about the circumstances and assumed that that information got home, as the original information made it home before I had the chance to explain it to the students.
Basically, there was supposed to be 2 different types of marching band "competitive" marching band (which met in the evening and was at every rehearsal, and worked like a sport) and Normal Marching Band which performed at football games, parades, husky band day, that included all students in the band class during the normal day. Many of the students never understood the difference in these two even though it was explained at the end of last year, and multiple times this year so far.
What happened was that "competitive" marching band was not well attended at all, less than 25% of the band was participating, the first rehearsal only 9 kids showed up. The next week it was 16, the following week it was 12. Students didnt understand the dedication that was needed to be in a competitive group, or they didnt demonstrate it. As we came to the end of the first month, we were already so deep in a hole we would have never gotten to a point where we were "competitive". So the drum major and myself decided for a different plan, and that it wasnt something that would really fit in this community.
The second factor is cost. The past 3 years I have paid for everything concerning "marching" shows. Paying for arrangers, writing the shows myself, arranging the music myself, paying my friends to come down and work with kids, spending many many hours researching and developing our shows. All by myself. Other schools have 4-16 staff members, paid by the district or boosters, that help out with marching. Other schools the boosters pay the 500-1500 dollars it costs to have competitive show music written, drill, and all other factors of the show taken care of. We do not have that here, and I personally cannot afford to continue to support the marching by myself.
Other bands have "band" fees for marching season where each students pays a certain amount to do marching band, which covers most of the fees, but I feel like that would be an unneeded burden on the parents of students, as we already deal with monetary issues with the small amount of stuff we already do.
Tenino will continue to get marching experience, we know how to put a band on the field, march in parades, and other elements of marching that make it worthwhile to have it as a part of the HS curriculum. We are still doing a show this year, for our marching festival and for auburn, we will just use purely class time so that everyone can participate rather than having evening rehearsals where less than half of the band shows up. Our band is bigger than ever, as you can tell from our football performances and how packed we are in the corner of the stadium. The idea is to make it easier for the kids to participate and I feel like not doing a competitive show is probably the easiest way to us to attain that success.
We have new "non-competitive" uniforms that I think are going to be pretty cool now, and we are getting more and more musical with each day of rehearsal, and I think that the experience will be different, but still a quality experience and product for those involved.
Thanks for your concern
AB
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