High School Bands, Musicians Plan to Protest Board in Wake of Schedule Changes

Current Parsippany Hills and Parsippany High School students, products of the music and band offerings at their middle schools, have planned to protest the district’s board of education Thursday after a vote to change the programming in two of the district’s schools.

Marching band and chorus members from both high schools will congregate outside the Board of Education building from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, prior to board’s regular meeting.

“The music students of Parsippany will protest these recent actions through performing, making a loud statement to our Board of Ed. We are planning to perform our Christmas repertoire, as well as music played during football games,” said Parsippany Hills High School sophomore Alexei Sepe.

Those changes come in the form of a complete overhaul of the Brooklawn and Central middle schools daily course structure for the 2014-15 school year.

The changes include longer class time but one less class per day, according to the district. With that comes less personal instruction time for band or chorus, according to the district’s question and answer document posted for the community.

Learn more about those changes here.

The student protest comes on the heels of a teacher rally in November due to changes brought forth by the administration.

In addition to the protest, one Parsippany resident has written a letter to the editor claiming the changes will hurt home values in town, and a district alumnus has started a petition on change.org lobbying the board to reverse its vote.