Band to School Board: Thanks For Restoring Funding

The thanks were music to Hopatcong School Board members' earts.

Members of the Hopatcong High School Band attended Monday's board meeting Monday night with Tom Dougherty, president of the Hopatcong High School Band Parents Organization, to thank the officials for reinstating the band's funding

“In voting to reinstate the marching band and resume, at least in part, funding for the band, we are very grateful. We felt it very important that the kids be here tonight, because at the end of the day, it is the kids that the board said yes to,” Dougherty said.

make room in the district's $35 million budget for the program, which It agreed $8,151 will pay for band director Matt Testa's $4,000 stipend, transportation to away football games, entry fees for two competitions and stipends for two instructional specialists.

“I think it is far too easy sometimes to think about things in dollars and cents and we lose sight of the fact that there are kids being directly impacted by the decisions the Board and the voters make,” Dougherty said.

Dougherty said that the students were hurt by last year’s budget cuts, and were ecstatic to hear that the board supported their effort.  

“It makes them feel that what they do matters and is important not just to them and their parents, but to the entire school community,” Dougherty said.

Additionally, he told the board that the parents organization continues to keep the promises it makes to the board and has purchased, at no cost to the school, new uniforms for the band. He said this will be the first year that the marching band will have new uniforms in nearly three decades.