Hawaii public school band directors are clamoring to save band programs they believe could be pushed aside by a new science requirement for seventh- and eighth-graders. Band directors band together
to save their music classes
By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.comKent Sato, Pearl City High School band director and spokesman for the band directors, said the group is not proposing to eliminate the science requirement, but they just want to make sure that electives such as band, foreign languages and art are not sacrificed to free up class time for science courses.
"Unless the offerings to the students can be preserved, then the science requirement is a step backwards," he said. "It just puts us one step closer to producing one-dimensional students."
The state Board of Education voted last month to require intermediate- and middle-school students to take two years of science instead of the one year currently required.
About 300 directors, students and their parents went to last night's Board of Education meeting in the Stevenson Middle School cafetorium to support band programs.
A Kawananakoa science teacher also testified that science and fine arts are both components of a comprehensive education, and neither should be sacrificed.
She said her school has a three-year science program that coexists with a fine band program.
Before the meeting, Sato said the group would consider a seven-period school program, instead of the usual six classes, to make room for electives like band. Sato said the group does not want to see band programs pushed to an after-school activity.
"People will start thinking we're optional," he said.
He said it may also become a funding issue if more science teachers must be hired at the expense of those teaching electives.
Justin Mew, DOE science education specialist, said the new requirement does not necessarily jeopardize electives.
"I know it's possible" to make room for both science and electives, Mew said, pointing to four schools that have successfully found alternate scheduling, including switching to seven class periods.
Mew said the new requirement would not make it necessary to hire additional science teachers in many cases. In some schools, there are already part-time eighth-grade science teachers who may just have to be made full time.
Moanalua High School band student Lizzy Lynch said her band class is up in arms about the possibility of losing the band program.
Lynch, who has taken four years of advanced-placement science classes, is passionate about music.
"People who do well in music do well in school in general," said the senior. "You learn life lessons from band that you just can't learn anywhere else."
BOE member Karen Knudsen said the testimony was a healthy discussion that showed the "depth of concern for the fine arts."
"The board is committed to working out a solution," she said.
State Board of Education
