PORT ANGELES — The 20 sixth-graders in Jesse Reynolds’ beginning band class at Franklin Elementary School almost didn’t get a chance to play an instrument this year.
Eliminating sixth-grade band was part of $5 million in program and staffing cuts the Port Angeles School District planned to make last spring to meet its 2023-2024 $50 million budget. That is, until the community pushed back and music department chair Jarrett Hansen came up with a plan to keep the program alive.
More than 30 students, parents and community members spoke at an April 27, 2023 school board meeting against the district choosing to refrain from filling the sixth-grade band teacher position at Stevens Middle School when long-time instructor John Kilzer retired at the end of the year. The district’s intent was to hire for the position in 2028, when the renovated Stevens was expected to reopen.
The sixth-grade band program received a reprieve when the district agreed to Hansen’s proposal that it hire a full-time sixth-grade band teacher if he taught seventh- and eighth-grade band classes in addition to his teaching duties at the high school.
So, this fall Reynolds — a former math teacher at Stevens Middle School and a general music teacher at Dry Creek Elementary — began teaching sixth-grade band for the first time. (As a brass player who had to learn how to play the flute over the summer for his new job, he liked to say that he is learning alongside his students.)
The district’s band program has been struggling, as other districts music programs have been, with a steep decline in students due to the COVID-19 shutdown. Hansen, who arrived in Port Angeles in fall 2020 just months before the district returned to remote learning, said the band program has about half the number of students it did before the pandemic.
“Once kids leave, it’s hard to come back,” Hansen said.
Rebuilding
Hansen and Reynolds have been working together to rebuild and reinvigorate the program by focusing on retention, creating a band community and developing consistency in teaching philosophy across the elementary, middle and high schools. They met over the summer to develop a plan for getting students excited about band and keeping them excited so they wouldn’t drop out after middle school.
One of Hansen and Reynolds’ goals has been to do a better job keeping students in the band program by creating a path from sixth grade to high school.
“There hasn’t been a concerted effort to retain students and bridge the gap between beginning band and high school band,” Reynolds said.
One strategy has been to have Hansen occasionally teach at the elementary schools and Stevens so students will know who he is when they arrive on the high school campus.
“Jarrett came to my classes for two days in the fall and I told students, ‘He’ll be your teacher at the high school,’” Reynolds said. “We’re going to trade jobs again this spring and the whole purpose will be for the sixth graders to get to know him.”
Reynolds said there were more than 100 sixth graders taking band in all five of the district’s elementary schools and 85 seventh and eighth graders enrolled in percussion and winds classes at Stevens.
Sixth-graders have a choice of four instruments: clarinet, flute, trombone or trumpet. Their options open up in the seventh grade for playing percussion, tuba, saxophone and other reed instruments.
Alina Wilkison, 12, who plays the flute in Reynolds’ class at Franklin Elementary School, said the instrument was actually her third choice after clarinet and trumpet.
“The fingering is a little bit tricky and it can be hard to blow, but I like it,” Wilkison said.
Next year she plans to pick up an instrument she really wants to play: the bassoon.
“I just feel it’s much more of a challenge,” she said.
Another instructor
Part two of the program rebuild will be finding the right person to teach seventh and eighth grade band to relieve Hansen from teaching seven classes at two different schools.
“Not that I’m not happy to do it,” Hansen said. “But it’s not sustainable.”
If Hansen and Reynolds achieve their goal of 80 percent of students continuing from sixth grade elementary school band to seventh grade middle school band, it would be “a good problem to have,” Reynolds said.
“If that happens, we definitely need another teacher and to buy new instruments,” he added.
And band instruments are extremely expensive, both to own and rent.
About 60 percent of sixth-grade students are able to borrow their instruments for free from the school, although there was a scramble at the start of the year to make sure there were enough for everyone.
The district works with Ted Brown Music in Silverdale which rents and sells student instruments. As an example, according to its website, it costs $42-$72 a month to rent an alto saxophone; prices for a new instrument start at around $2,300.
“Instruments is a big issue at the high school and the middle school,” Hansen said. “Tuba, bassoon, oboe are expensive but we need them to fill out the sound that we need.”
The program is always looking for donations of band instruments — even old ones that it can salvage for their parts.
“If anyone has a drum set or a bassoon sitting in their closet, we’ll take it,” Hansen said.
Marching band
Farther down the road will be reviving the high school marching band.
To start with, there are not enough students and none of them have any experience.
“We have to re-introduce it step by step because they’ll be learning it from scratch,” Hansen said. “We need to bring in somebody to teach them the marching basics, somebody to work with brass, working with the woodwinds.”
Marching band takes a lot of time outside of school hours for practice, and not every student in the band program will necessarily be interested in participating in marching band. The earliest Hansen and Reynolds anticipate having enough students to fill out the ranks of a marching band of at least 75 instruments is fall 2027.
The district will need to purchase uniforms because the current ones are in very poor condition. Hansen said San Leandro High School in California, where he worked before coming to Port Angeles, spent $150,000 on new uniforms for its marching band. There also will be costs associated with traveling to competitions and for band camps that will need to be covered by parents, the district or both.
Until a marching band is organized, the pep band will continue to play at athletic and other events, Hansen said. And, there are still other options high school musicians can choose among: jazz band, symphonic band, wind ensemble and percussion ensemble.
Melinda Bishop said her daughter, Madison, was ready to quit band after the eighth grade before Hansen took over the program. Bishop, who had loved playing the in the band when she attended Port Angeles High School, said she had to practically beg her daughter to stay in the program.
“I had to convince her, ‘let’s just try it one more year,’” Bishop said.
Now a tenth-grader, Madison is still in band, hoping to audition for wind ensemble, in the band leadership program and earning points to graduate with music honors — and still playing the same clarinet her mom played in high school. Bishop said the change in direction in the program made all the difference.
“My kid is in love with music again,” Bishop said. “And she willingly signed up for band.”
Hansen said the district had been very supportive of the band program and the efforts he and Reynolds had been making to reengage students, but it couldn’t grow until a teacher at the middle school was hired.
“We want to find the next person who can fit well with our vision for the program,” he said.
Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached at 360-425-2345, ext. 50583, or by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.