Whitnall Officialls Considering Music Lesson Changes

GREENFIELD, WI — Citing imbalanced staffing numbers unequal course offerings, Whitnall School District officials are considering multiple ways to make changes to the district's elementary school instrumental music program - and some parents are upset by one of the preliminary ideas brought forward during a parent meeting.

District officials told Patch that an elementary music teacher will be retiring this year. Administrators collected two ideas from teachers in the district's K-12 music program, about how to re-balance instructional hours to be fair to all students, and then brought those ideas to parents for feedback on Feb. 28.

One of the ideas was to revise elementary school schedules and redistribute teaching hours to re-balance the music program, but it's the second idea that upset some parents: moving band and orchestra away from fourth and fifth graders in favor of moving it to sixth grade.

About 40 parents attended a Feb. 28 parent meeting to raise concerns with that idea.

Joe Chimilewski, a parent of two elementary school children in the district told Patch that he wants to see the district fix the problem without eliminating opportunities for young people.

"Removing opportunity doesn't seem like a real solution to me. I would hope for the status quo of the emergence of a third option. I was emotional, and my family was emotional, and I wanted to hear their reasoning," he said.

District officials said they're a long way off from authoring an actual proposal that would be brought to the board, and did not want to alarm parents about one of the initial ideas.

"As a former music instructor, I know firsthand the power and importance of music education; I promise to continue to be an advocate for a strong music program here at Whitnall," Lisa L. Olson, Superintendent said in a letter to parents.

District officials said four new ideas will be brought before the next School Board meeting on March 11. At that meeting, the school board plans to roll out the new ideas, and take public comment. The meeting will be held at the Community Board Room at Whitnall High School at 6:30 p.m. on March 11.

Here are two questions submitted by Whitnall School district parents, and the responses prepared by district officials during the Feb. 28 parent meeting presentation.

Parent Question 1: Why would we eliminate a highly successful program in the elementary grades? It is so important to start at an early age. You are proposing a weekly middle school lesson. That is no different from what they get in elementary? So why change it?

District Response: We only consider these changes to address current struggles of the elementary band/orchestra lesson schedule, as well as to bring our staffing in line with course needs. The option to move band/orchestra start to 6th grade is a different structure in that the weekly lessons proposed at the middle school level are in addition to the already-existing 2 or 3 classes per week. Another difference is that students would not be pulled from another elective area--phy ed, art, library, technology--at the middle school.

Parent Question 2: Why fix what’s not broken? Music lessons are important at an early age. Fix it across the board including elementary school. Don’t let the younger ones suffer.

District Response: We will do our best to not let the programming suffer, although it may need to take on a different look. The current system, while not necessarily “broken,” has been presenting some challenges in both equity and accessibility. The impending retirement of one of our music teachers now allows us to explore options while still keeping all of our current staff members.

You can read the full question-and-answer session here. You can see the district's presentation here.