No Band Competitions for Masuk Next School Year

The Masuk High School Band marched to a perfect season under the leadership director Aaron Barkon last year, and teamed up with the Colorguard to win the Musical Arts Conference Championship. But there can be no repeat next fall.

The school district let Barkon go and, due to a low enrollment in the program, there will be no competitions in 2011-12. Amy Grasso has been named the new band director.

Steve Kirsch, who regularly attends Board of Education meetings, heard of the changes and of Barkon's departure two weeks ago and spoke about it at Monday night's board meeting.

"As many of you know, I was a marching band parent for eight years and I feel that this program is very valuable to our students," he said. "Over the years, in 2005 and again in 2008, there were proposals
that would effectively have eliminated the competition portion of the marching band program and yet students and parents spoke up and that activity was saved. Once again it appears to have been eliminated with nothing more than a letter to parents — no presentation to the board, no action by the board, and no chance for parents or students to have input. I think this is wrong."

No one on the Board of Education commented after Kirsch spoke, but he said he had corresponded with both Masuk Principal John Batista and Grasso and that they provided some of the reasons
behind the changes to the program.

"Nevertheless, I would still like to see a competitive marching band program this fall within the Musical Arts Conference," Kirsch said. "Our students were extremely successful in the program last year; we were a founding member of the Musical Arts Conference in 2001, and I would hope that our students could still participate."

While understanding of the lack of enrollment, Kirsch suggested an addition to the ranks of eighth graders, who will go to Masuk for the new Science Technology Engineering and Math Academy.

As far as Barkon's leaving, Kirsch noted how the school board publicizes retirement letters and new hires at its meetings.

"However, when we let teachers and other staff go, there is no public record of that action," he said. "I think that is wrong and I think that is something that the board needs to look into and needs to address."

"In the case of Mr. Barkon, he was a teacher at the high school for six years I believe, and his departure should not go unnoticed or unrecognized," Kirsch continued. "I also think that it would be to the board's advantage to have a public record when teachers and other staff leave and there should be a notation as to whether those positions were replaced or not. I think that this would also be useful for the public at budget time when staffing is always such an issue."

In closing, Kirsch said, "I think that having a competitive marching program is a wonderful opportunity for the students and I would hope that the administration would look at everything that it could do to keep that program as it has been in the past."