4th and 5th grade instrumental music is on the chopping block in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, and a petition on change.org has been created to show the district that music must stay.
The MDUSD Board of Education will be voting on whether or not to cut the music program on Wednesday Feb.23.
What can you do to help?
1. Sign the petition at this link.
2. Go to the “SAVE 4TH & 5TH Grade Instrumental Music!” Rally on Wednesday at 5 p.m.
You don’t need to be a parent of a child in the MDUSD to sign the petition or show up to the rally – anyone can sign/attend.
15 comments
Meh, the PTA already pays for the PE teacher for K-2 and the art teacher is a parent volunteer. I’m sure they can cut the budget to pay teachers more and ask for a larger expected donation. It’s cool. Our schools are GRREREAT!!!!
One wonders if the school board or idiot superintendent cares about these online petitions? If they are dead set on cutting something (not bloated admin salaries of course), they will.
The reason online doesn’t work is they don’t see you in their face. I believe it was AOC who said you have to get out there and make them feel uncomfortable. Same with the zoom council meetings. They just ignore the people. This unaccountable government needs to be removed.
People need to tell the Board what programs should be cut to generate the savings, not just say don’t cut music. Unless the teachers want to take salary cuts, or people think schools should be closed, programs will have to be cut. The district office can’t be cut enough to generate the savings needed.
Sorry Fed Up! MDUSD is widely known for being bloated at the top. Given the district is so poorly run, it’s obvious our money is being wasted at that level. Cut from the top and concentrate the funding where it belongs, on programs that benefit the kids! Music is one of those programs.
Fed up
This is a true story. My uncle taught at CP in the 60’s & 70’s. He was selected by the district to go to admin and be the “curriculum designer” for the districts Jr high and high school program. The district assigned him 2 assistance and a secretary. He told them he didn’t need all that staff and that a part-time or shared typist clerk would work fine. They told at his level he “needed staff”. He requested to go back to the classroom the next school year as he had an issue with that much money being spent in nonsense and not the classroom.
He went on to teach a couple more years at CP then was selected to go to Europe to teach teachers how to teach, came back and good the remedial math going at Olympic before “retiring” which meant he went to Cal to teach teachers how to teach, wrote a couple of text books etc
So there is money for things if the spend wisely and not assign multiple assistants/staff to one person in admin
Music should be an integral part of public grammar school teaching! Music is essential to life!
So is in-person school but no one cared about that for 2 years.
Does the petition include a recall of the school board? This is as essential as music in my opinion.
10000000% I will vote for any plan that recalls every one of them and bars Nzewi from all public service.
The discussions about public schools in Claycord are so depressing. I feel so bad for the kids who are caught up in this system. This same discussion about art/music classes being cut….gets repackaged every 3-5 years. When the weather improves, are we going to see pink slip stunts and empty chairs on the sidewalk again?
One easy way they could pay for the music program is to re-evaluate their grounds maintenance success and budget. MDUSD totally redid the weed infested massive ball field at Foothill Middle School years ago with new sprinklers and sod. Within two years the weeds were coming back and I called, over a two year period, three different maintenance directors to “encourage” them to do preventive weed management. Nothing happened. The field now looks exactly like it did fifteen years ago. A giant weed patch. What a waste of money and management/staff salaries.
There should be an after school music program for those who want it.
@Aunt Barbara – “After school programs” aren’t taught by certificated teachers nor are they paid the same way. Are you suggesting that full time certificated teachers on salary teach the after school program at a greatly reduced hourly rate? Cold blooded suggestion.
Aunt Barbara, generally, I am with you. Not this time. The cutting of the instrumental music program will impact, as it has before, secondary music programs. Why should the music program be the scapegoat? How about we cut Leadership classes? A couple of students can organize a school dance. How about cutting Journalism classes? The school newspapers I have seen are generally pathetic. The music classes in MDUSD are generally quite good.
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