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Please help! Program and scheduling conflicts!Date: June 10, 2013 by Paul von Kampen  Views: 139
I am a high school choir/orchestra teacher and have a school schedule that is very unfriendly to the two main auditioned music group - Orchestra and Choir. We're in a state of building and growth, so the choir is at 45 and the Orchestra is around 35 members. Every member I put in the groups deserves to be in and is necessary for growth.
We build our schedule based upon students filling out forms requesting which classes they want/need. it's year round block schedule, with students going to different classes every other day, so nothing changes at semester. This hurts the music department because depending on how the schedule ends up working out, I can never tell students what period choir will be, or what classes it 'normally' conflicts with. Therefore, I do auditions for the next year in May, then all throughout June and July and August I have students coming up to me telling me they have a conflict and can't do Choir/Orchestra/Jazz Band/etc... because that is when the master schedule is getting finalized.
Obviously the easiest solution would be to have the students value my groups more than AP classes, but we all know that's a pipe dream and won't work in all cases. The true solution is to have a daily school schedule that builds into itself a block of time that is really only for music/art/electives. Therefore not pitting something like Concert Choir up against numerous and popular AP and honors courses.
Does anyone have a modified block schedule that would solve this problem?? Perhaps have one block a day that's only 50 minutes, where choir can meet all 5 days? If you don't have a block schedule, any other ideas I can take to the administration?
The admins admit freely to me that 1. They know nothing about music, and 2. they want me to build a program, and I trust them on both accounts. They're not nefarious or the enemy.
If someone makes the football team, there's no way they would let 'academics' get in the way of participation. Why must my classes suffer that fate? Thanks in advance.
Carter Collins on June 11, 2013 3:22am
Long Beach High School in my hometown in Mississippi has a block schedule on the traditional school calendar. They organized the day so that the block surrounding the lunch shifts is designed for the music/art/electives. They also assigned a specific lunch to those students in an art/music class, extending that block by 20 minutes specifically for the music and art classes. This schedule has brought great success to the choir and band programs, which are thriving, having recently gone through the building and growth process you describe, while recovering along with the community after Hurricane Katrina. The administration at the HS is supportive of the program as well.
You might suggest this approach to your administration, citing the success at LBHS.
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