East Granby Students Still Hope to Make Beautiful Music

music students may still be able to participate in a popular regional festival thanks, in part, to impassioned pleas by three residents made to the on Monday evening.

The issue surrounds participation in the Connecticut Music Educators Association’s regional musical festival, to which East Granby High normally sends at least one to four students every year following a rigorous two-day audition process.

About 20 students from East Granby audition every year.

But, following a lengthy discussion, the only thing that is certain is that there are still a lot of moving parts to the matter.

The following is known: this year, while the school board budgeted funds to pay for the CMEA's membership fees, the CMEA requires additional expenses, which, according to Superintendent of Schools Christine Mahoney, includes covering the cost of substitute teachers to take the place of high school music teachers who have to be present at the auditions if students from their schools participate.

Last year, funding to send the students to the auditions and festival - which amounts to about $2,000 - was obtained through grant money which has since run out, according to Mahoney.

“I don’t know why CMEA is so inflexible with their requirements,” said Mahoney, who said that the CMEA requires each school district to provide chaperones rather than have districts such as East Granby and Suffield be allowed to share chaperones, thus spreading the cost.

But Sue Mollica, a resident and a music teacher, said that obtaining substitute teachers was not necessary for the auditions because they do not start until 3 p.m., well after the school day has ended. The cost for obtaining substitutes for the actual regional festival was also overstated, according to Mollica, who added that membership dues to CMEA had already been paid by the East Granby school district during the last school year.

What’s more, Pam Raabe, the parent of an East Granby High music student, said that parents were willing to transport their children to and from the auditions and the festival, as well as cover the cost of the fees to enter the competition.

There was a lot at stake, according to Pam Raabe and her daughter, East Granby High senior Michelle Raabe, who qualified her sophomore year to sing at the CMEA regionals.

Pam Raabe said that her daughter had learned valuable leadership experience and gained confidence from having to perform in front of so many people in such a condensed period of time.

“I got in a room with 200 other kids, and there were 40 basses and 40 tenors and altos, and, holy cow, so many people,” Michelle Raabe said. “And we all made music and it was incredible. We had four hours of practice time and we performed five pieces. We have three months at East Granby to learn five pieces. It was mind-boggling. … This festival, it’s amazing.”

Michelle Raabe said that she had been working since July to learn the pieces that she would sing at her audition in November.

The students who were planning on attending the CMEA auditions were told, according to Mollica and the Raabes, last Friday to stop working on their material because there was no funding for the event.

Mahoney said that students should not have received that directive.

The communication, or lack thereof, coming from the music department was disconcerting to board member Kirby Huget.

“This leads to people wasting a lot of time and I hope this is the last time something like this happens on a meeting day,” Huget said.

Ultimately, Mollica and the Raabes all requested that, regardless of the cost, the school board do something to fund the field trip, arguing that the benefits far outweigh any costs associated with the endeavor.

School board members and Mahoney said that they wanted to have the program continued, but that additional inquiry was needed regarding the substitute teacher issue.

“I want students to have good experiences,” Mahoney said. “They can’t get it all from us.”

In other business, school board chairman Jeff Clark said that bids for the / project would be open this Thursday at at 2 p.m.