Psalm 96:1, 98:1, 149:1, and Isaiah 42:10 all say to sing to the Lord a new song. Someone has to write these new songs. I am one of those people.
Recently in church, the sermon covered the story of the widow's mite. This story tells of richer people making a show of the money they were giving, but this woman making little of her contribution. While this is often used to illustrate that you should give no matter how bad it gets, the core of the usage this time had to do with where your heart is when you do what you do for God, and that you can do the right things for the wrong reasons.
This got me to thinking about volunteering at the church. Churches are usually pretty vocal about needing help since they thrive on their congregation stepping up to give of their time for teaching and literally everything else that goes on. They cry out for help and proclaim that you have a talent in something and they can it. Those who volunteer for some things are applauded for their willingness to sacrifice for the Lord and there is rarely, if ever, any question as to their motives or heart in the matter.
Unless you're a songwriter.
We have a campaign going for Feed My Starving Children, and someone was on stage a few weeks back who felt like she was called to help this campaign and be a big part of it. No small deal was made of this desire. However, if this person had said, "The Lord has called me to write music for his people," the vetting and doubt would still be going on. I know this because I write music. It has been implied not very subtlely that my heart is not in the right place by more than one person.
So a person can be revered because they feel called in one area, but completely shut down if called in another? If I said I'm up for teaching the youngsters, I'd be ushered in without question. Heck, even as a stage musician, there was very little vetting when it came to playing the existing music. Someone has to play it, right?
Let's talk about a calling for just a moment. How does one know they are called to do a certain thing? I've struggled with this for a long time because I've been met with so much resistance in what I do. Being a writer of anything is very hard, disheartening work because unless you are "known," no one believes in you. Period. The way I see a calling of any kind is that it is something that no matter how hard you try to leave it behind, it continues to come back. No matter how much you want to do something else, you keep circling back around to that one thing. No matter how much something has hurt you, beat you down, or how much other people have given you so much crap over what you've done, you can't ever escape it. Your heart is continually drawn right back to that thing to try it again.
I've been so done so many times, and yet, I keep writing music. I've wanted to leave every bit of it behind so many times, but I can't. I can't stop writing it. I can't stop playing. I have to be a part of it. No matter how hard I try to escape or how harsh the comments are or how much pain I've experienced as a resulting of trying over and over, I continue to return because only within it do I actually find peace.
I've most recently taken to writing songs with a friend of mine under the moniker of Kingdom Song. We have a couple dozen posted on YouTube, not for the glory of ourselves, but because in order for songs to be heard, someone has to play them. No one else will, so we'll sing the new songs to the Lord ourselves so that others can hear, share, and maybe even use them. Will they fit everyone? Nope. But some might.
Is my heart in the right place? I want to think so, and since I'm so conscientious of it, it probably is. The problem with being in this sort of capacity is it can very easily translate into praise for self instead of praise for God. It's easy to point to a songwriter belting out one of their own songs and say that he just wants attention. And yet, no one accuses a preacher, who writes a new sermon every week, of performing for himself. How is this different? A person stands before a congregation and gives a speech about Godly things that he wrote himself. Why accuse a songwriter of being self-centered when there is actual, scriptural reference for singing to the Lord a new song?
A songwriter can actually add quite a bit to a church if they would open their minds to the possibilities. True, it takes more talent from a worship band to play something where the arrangement has to be created, but as long as you don't do an entire set of new music, you find the time. "Sing to the Lord a new song" is in scripture four times. We are to worship the Lord, but he not only wants to hear us, he has given us talents to make something new, and he wants to hear that too. Something there that many times means something.
So don't question the heart of the songwriter. Like so many other things, there are those out for themselves, but just because it is something creative doesn't mean their heart isn't in it for the right reasons. "But you just did a whole blog post complaining about it," you may have just said. This blog post was because I was hurt by those who questioned my motives in what I am compelled to do. This post is a cry to those who turn a deaf ear to not just me, but everyone out there who wants to sing the to Lord a new song whether they want to hear it or not. This post is a reminder that just because something is public, that doesn't mean the heart of its creator isn't with the heart of THE creator.
"Sing to the Lord a new song." The Bible says it. I believe it. And if you look around, you'll find someone who can write it.
Monday, May 22, 2017
Monday, May 15, 2017
Broken Arrow Split Would Dissolve Pride Marching Band
A plan was presented to us in Broken Arrow in March 2017 to deal with the current population growth in the school system by using both the current high school campus and the freshman academy campus as full 9-12 high schools. It was a plan so overwrought with problems and unanswered questions that the district indicated that they were going to slow down, form committees, and answer questions before deciding on any proposal. Our hope is that the proposal died that day and something new will come up. We're not 100% certain of this, and as such, I wish to post about the scariest aspect of the plan: the dissolution of the biggest national and international celebrity in Broken Arrow, the Pride of Broken Arrow marching band.
I know it seems odd that a marching band would be a celebrity, and like a prophet in his hometown, Broken Arrow doesn't give it much thought, but outside of our town, it's renowned. The majority of the town has no idea what they have. When it comes to its loss, the military would refer to it as "collateral damage." Because of Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activity Association rules, the city cannot have a single marching band represent separate high schools, and the directors basically confirmed that if such a plan passed, the Pride of Broken Arrow will be no more.
The reason for this sudden end to the nationally recognized ensemble is that with the dilution of the talent across the city, and the fact that the only way for a school to get an annual sweepstakes award is for that school to excel in both marching and concert band, each school will need to require that every student enrolled in band participate in marching band at each school. Since the marching band will have to move from optional extracurricular back to required, it is felt that asking students to pay the fees currently associated with Pride to be unreasonable, and lower fees mean the big national trips will have to end. Beyond that, the Pride is a very expensive endeavor. We'd need more instruments, drill planning, musical arrangement, color guard instructors, and choreography. A lot goes into a band show. That's twice as much cash that no one has at the moment.
Before delving further into the Pride's importance, I want to deal with this plan a little bit. It has been a couple months since the original plan, and a lot has been spoken of and passed around since then about this and that, so I definitely want to address some of the things I never thought of before along with things that other people have said in favor of the plan.
To most people, the school marching band is not a big deal. In fact, Broken Arrow takes its Pride for granted. To people who were a part of it, it's family. I saw this dissolution as soon as I read the configuration proposal, and I said something. In the beginning of all of this, I was criticized for putting the band ahead of academic success and progress. They said that the town has enough talent to make a great marching band, but the directors indicated that whatever that is won't be the Pride because their mentality is that it should be an opportunity for all students equally and a two school system can't promise that. So someone telling me there will be another band as good is like telling a grieving parent that they can have more children.
This means that a split that has as parts of its intent to provide more opportunities will take away the opportunity that hundreds of band students look forward to every year. Is that a sacrifice we want to make? Is it one we have to make? Beyond that, a large campus offers infinitely more opportunities than a smaller one because more students mean more ideas which translate into more niche areas. So which opportunities have floated to the surface that people really want? Sports. People want their kid to play on a sports team and there are only limited numbers of people who can. Welcome to life. I heard the NFL just did their draft. Thousands desired to have a spot and only a couple hundred were selected. So many people want to play though. Should we split the NFL? If you ask a band student who missed out on All-State because there are limited spots, they'll tell you to get good. Practice your butt off and go for again next year. It's the way life works. Deal with it now.
Some point to school size, but size is a relative thing and big or small is a matter of opinion and perspective. Broken Arrow doesn't have the largest high school in the nation or even our region. Two of our nearest neighbors and competitors are Union and Jenks, both of whom have 10-12 graders in their high school. BA has 3500. Union does too. Jenks was at 3300. This doesn't mean we're big. It means we're comparable.
"But students feel isolated or invisible in a school this size." Students have to make themselves visible. They have to want to do something. They have to step out and decide to do something. No teacher can force a student to get involved, but there is something at that high school for literally everyone if they want to find it. I am a major introvert and I found more than one thing to do while I was there and the population was pushing 2,000 with just juniors and seniors.
"But you don't know everyone's names because we're so big. Don't even know everyone is every class." You know what? I knew the names of the people around me in my classes, not everyone. And this is another example of life. I work in an office with about 200 people. I don't know everyone's name. I know the ones around me and that's about it.
"But the gym is not big enough for pep rallies and other gatherings." Well, the Gym (formerly known as building G) wasn't built for the current population, but there are other ways to manage large populations for things like this. We have the technology to stream it for example to the student union and other places. Some students actually don't care and don't want to go. Why make them?
"What about overcrowding at that high school?" Perspective. My wife and I both attended BAHS and my oldest is there now. We knew how big it was, but it never felt that way from the inside. We had our place. How about putting 9th graders with seniors? My middle child is in 9th grade and while she wouldn't be bothered, she prefers being with her own age group and likes the freshman academy for that reason. Also for that reason, a transition to a 10th-grade academy followed by yet another to the senior high doesn't bother her at all. Maybe we should have asked the kids what they think instead of adults who can't relate and only think we know best.
"But the high school is old and needs work." So is the freshman academy. The former SIHS is actually older than the high school. Both campuses are aging, and the district is working on them. It takes time. Some have given knocked my comment about the high school being a Rolls Royce and point to its many issues. My original thought process in that analogy was noting that comparing the Freshman Academy to the High School was like comparing a three-door hatchback to a Rolls Royce. I was simply saying that the high school was a bigger, better campus and putting high schoolers at the freshman academy would be cheating them out of opportunities.
Then when the frustration really kicks in, people say it should be about academics. You can't let the Pride be more important that academics. Let's talk about academics. First, you can get academics anywhere. People homeschool. There are a wealth of private schools in the area. But you didn't homeschool or put you kids in one of those other places. No, you have them at our high school. Why? Can't afford the other options is a popular choice, but a reason we wanted our kids to be in this school was for the opportunities it afforded. To be very specific, we wanted them to have the chance to be in the Pride. We didn't want Union or anywhere in Tulsa. We wanted Broken Arrow. We went there. We liked it. Besides, academics don't happen out on the campus in the populace. They happen in the classroom. I heard that Broken Arrow's student-teacher ratio was 20:1. Yes, some are higher and some are lower, but that's the curse of averages. That ratio means the academics can happen just fine because those occur between students and teachers. Additionally, both the high school and freshman academy have unused space because we have no teachers to fill the rooms. A split won't change that.
That actually can't be solved locally but at the state level where our current government apparently cares more about their agendas than education but that's another topic entirely. Due to the Oklahoma's inability to manage our money, the student-teacher ratio is going up even down to grade levels where there is classroom space available, but the district can't afford the teachers to fill them.
If Broken Arrow was going to entertain a split, it should have been done years ago before we oriented everything to befit a large scale high school. It's not just the band that would suffer in a split. We have dozens of unique academic opportunities that can only exist in a school with a large population. In our high school, find classes with only one instance or with a single teacher. Classes like that can't survive a split because they require a certain level of interest. Look for clubs that you don't find on every campus. Unusual ones with a low population count. Those also wouldn't survive.
So, in the case of our district, the plan on the table takes two overcrowded campuses and shuffles the students around which gives you ... two overcrowded campuses. The most basic solution is more classrooms and teachers, and I mean more than 10 at each campus. More is under construction now, but until you can alleviate the current overcrowding at each campus, moving students around won't help and certainly is not worth the sacrifice of the Pride.
So let's go back to the Pride. Does the Pride deserve to be considered in a decision that would result in its destruction? Yes. That organization has done more for our community than any of us ever will. The band puts nearly 400 students on the field which is more than any other group. It has the largest parent volunteer organization on campus as well. You may or may not know that schools get a grade for the number of parent volunteer hours logged. The Pride parents log enough hours for the school to get an A rating by themselves. Like the concessions at any high school event? Look who's running it. It's the Pride parents who volunteer their time to serve you concessions at your football and soccer games at the high school and freshman academy stadiums. Behind the scenes of those 400-ish students is a cast of thousands running the show. All out of love for the kids and the program. Does something that important to thousands of people deserve consideration?
Words swirl around in my head when it comes to all of this. Besides progress and sacrifice, I also get legacy and tradition. The band was founded in 1929 and the Pride label was first used in the 70's, I believe. So we've had this high school band for 90 years. To call it a tradition is almost too small a word. It is weaved into the town's very fabric and history, and while I know many things go away over the years in the name of progress, we don't want to lose traditions for the sake of someone's misplaced desire to leave a legacy. If this is passed, the legacy of our board will be that they ended the Pride of Broken Arrow. They consciously voted on a plan knowing the consequence that hundreds of students would lose a life experience that has positively impacted our town and its children for decades.
Dissolving the Pride would be like disowning Kristen Chenoweth, and the Pride is actually more famous. It's not just national. It's international in its fame. Every year tens of thousands of people sit in stadiums, hear the name of Broken Arrow, and they wait to leave the stadium because they know they're going to see something amazing. A speaker at the recent Pride banquet, who was never a member and yet still has Pride gear, was wearing a polo with the Pride logo in places like Columbia and Japan, and he met people who knew us. A guy I work with from Indianapolis told me with considerable pride that his local high school got one of our band directors: Mr. Kaflek. They wanted him because he taught at Broken Arrow. They wanted a piece of the Pride to teach them.
The Pride has hosted a drum Corp competition for several summers now that has brought thousands of people into our town as either part of those ensembles or as spectators who follow them. The Pride has also hosted Oklahoma Bandmaster Association state championships which brings thousands to our town from across the state to watch. The Pride has won this for more than 10 years straight. On the most watched parade in the world this year, the name of Broken Arrow was seen by millions of people because of the Pride. Watch What Happens at football games before and after halftime. People come to watch the band, and then they leave. Seats clear up all over the stadium after halftime. So people pay to go to football games, watch the band, and reveal that's what they came for, not to watch football. How many towns in Oklahoma can boast that some people prefer to watch the local band than the football team? The pride of Broken Arrow is literally one of the best things about Broken Arrow, and you want to end it. Some little town in Oklahoma is recognized across the world because of its marching band. And they want to end it.
Like I said, this is not some apocalyptic doomsday prediction. The directors have already told the students that this would happen if the school splits.
From a first-hand perspective on the impact here, I was in the Pride back in 1991-92 when it was required and we didn't win everything. But we went to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl parade and marched in the Inauguration parade for Bill Clinton. My sister was in D.C. again for Bush's second inauguration. How many of you did that? The Pride is a unique opportunity for our children that will never happen again in their lives. Ever. The reaction of my 6th grader when informed that by the time she reaches 9th grade, there may not be a pride to try out for? Tears. She has been wanting that since she saw the pride perform as a 4th grader. For almost 3 years, it has been in her plans to tryout at the end of 8th grade, and they want to end it. She cried. We consoled her with the idea that it was just a preliminary recommendation and pray that it will never pass. How many more children like her are out there who want more than anything to be a part of that group. It's a major opportunity that will be gone. How many dreams will be shattered? Do they matter?
So does something need to be done? Sure. But we don't need to split the campus. We don't need multiple high schools. There are a wealth of other problems that can also create but I've talked long enough. What we really need is better management of what we have. If we can't manage this, how are we supposes to handle changing things around? There are bigger high schools in the nation with 4, 5, and even 8,000 students in a physical location. Rather than going right to a split, why not investigate their solutions with a big campus? Carmel, IN is a nationally recognized school for its academics and such and it has the Freshman on campus too, giving them 5,000 students. Universities are massive with tens of thousands of students and they manage as well.
Broken Arrow has something amazing right now. We should never want to lose it now or in the future. "But we're growing" people say. According to the current numbers, we have a peak coming with a class of 1500, but looking over all the numbers, it is unique. They're also 2nd graders. The numbers behind it didn't grow. Could we get bigger? Yes. Do I have a suggestion? Well, we need to ensure we manage our funding correctly and ensure what was promised is done. It's 2017 and according to the schedule, our STEM classrooms for the high school were funded last year. They've decided to hold off on those for now. Yeah, we need more classrooms and they won't build them. The high school campus was built for juniors and seniors and a full campus was pushed to capacity by haphazardly adding in the sophomores. I thought that was a bad idea at the time as well.
To alleviate the stress, rather than a third high school, which was proposed, building a sophomore academy was a very popular notion. This would give the current campus plenty of growth room for the future since we've established how many students it can hold. I would be for reallocating the bond money to make that happen.
Even beyond that and beyond the proposal that was slowed down for the moment, and that we hope will not resurface, the community does not realize the good the Pride does for it. They don't realize that people have come here just to be part of that. Alumni stay here so their kids can be a part of it. People who aren't part of the band know it. The guy in charge of the Rose Parade sent a video message for the banquet looking forward to seeing the Pride again, perhaps, in four years. Little does he know that the current proposal means there won't be a Pride to go in four years. The speaker at the banquet looked forward to seeing the progress of our percussion ensembles in the WGI tournaments in ten years. In ten years, we may not be going. If we told someone outside of our band that our school board was considering something to end the Pride, they would think we lost our minds.
Broken Arrow current has one identity. We are Tigers. Businesses support the singularity of the teams and clubs they like because it is easy. There is only one to support. Splitting us would split the town. We would have to pick a side. Businesses would too. Bond issues would forever have to appeal to both sides or it won't pass. That's what the facilitator we brought in said to someone after one of the meetings. He thought the split was a terrible idea. He's also from a district with a 4000+ population high school.
We need progress, but we need the right kind of progress. The proposal we had was wrong for us in many ways, and we hope to never see it again. There is some suggestion in the wording from the district that we might get it back with some extra explanation showing that they did not listen to us and did what they wanted. We want something that will be beneficial to the most students, not ruin the town, and solve our underlying problem.
I know it seems odd that a marching band would be a celebrity, and like a prophet in his hometown, Broken Arrow doesn't give it much thought, but outside of our town, it's renowned. The majority of the town has no idea what they have. When it comes to its loss, the military would refer to it as "collateral damage." Because of Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activity Association rules, the city cannot have a single marching band represent separate high schools, and the directors basically confirmed that if such a plan passed, the Pride of Broken Arrow will be no more.
The reason for this sudden end to the nationally recognized ensemble is that with the dilution of the talent across the city, and the fact that the only way for a school to get an annual sweepstakes award is for that school to excel in both marching and concert band, each school will need to require that every student enrolled in band participate in marching band at each school. Since the marching band will have to move from optional extracurricular back to required, it is felt that asking students to pay the fees currently associated with Pride to be unreasonable, and lower fees mean the big national trips will have to end. Beyond that, the Pride is a very expensive endeavor. We'd need more instruments, drill planning, musical arrangement, color guard instructors, and choreography. A lot goes into a band show. That's twice as much cash that no one has at the moment.
Before delving further into the Pride's importance, I want to deal with this plan a little bit. It has been a couple months since the original plan, and a lot has been spoken of and passed around since then about this and that, so I definitely want to address some of the things I never thought of before along with things that other people have said in favor of the plan.
To most people, the school marching band is not a big deal. In fact, Broken Arrow takes its Pride for granted. To people who were a part of it, it's family. I saw this dissolution as soon as I read the configuration proposal, and I said something. In the beginning of all of this, I was criticized for putting the band ahead of academic success and progress. They said that the town has enough talent to make a great marching band, but the directors indicated that whatever that is won't be the Pride because their mentality is that it should be an opportunity for all students equally and a two school system can't promise that. So someone telling me there will be another band as good is like telling a grieving parent that they can have more children.
This means that a split that has as parts of its intent to provide more opportunities will take away the opportunity that hundreds of band students look forward to every year. Is that a sacrifice we want to make? Is it one we have to make? Beyond that, a large campus offers infinitely more opportunities than a smaller one because more students mean more ideas which translate into more niche areas. So which opportunities have floated to the surface that people really want? Sports. People want their kid to play on a sports team and there are only limited numbers of people who can. Welcome to life. I heard the NFL just did their draft. Thousands desired to have a spot and only a couple hundred were selected. So many people want to play though. Should we split the NFL? If you ask a band student who missed out on All-State because there are limited spots, they'll tell you to get good. Practice your butt off and go for again next year. It's the way life works. Deal with it now.
Some point to school size, but size is a relative thing and big or small is a matter of opinion and perspective. Broken Arrow doesn't have the largest high school in the nation or even our region. Two of our nearest neighbors and competitors are Union and Jenks, both of whom have 10-12 graders in their high school. BA has 3500. Union does too. Jenks was at 3300. This doesn't mean we're big. It means we're comparable.
"But students feel isolated or invisible in a school this size." Students have to make themselves visible. They have to want to do something. They have to step out and decide to do something. No teacher can force a student to get involved, but there is something at that high school for literally everyone if they want to find it. I am a major introvert and I found more than one thing to do while I was there and the population was pushing 2,000 with just juniors and seniors.
"But you don't know everyone's names because we're so big. Don't even know everyone is every class." You know what? I knew the names of the people around me in my classes, not everyone. And this is another example of life. I work in an office with about 200 people. I don't know everyone's name. I know the ones around me and that's about it.
"But the gym is not big enough for pep rallies and other gatherings." Well, the Gym (formerly known as building G) wasn't built for the current population, but there are other ways to manage large populations for things like this. We have the technology to stream it for example to the student union and other places. Some students actually don't care and don't want to go. Why make them?
"What about overcrowding at that high school?" Perspective. My wife and I both attended BAHS and my oldest is there now. We knew how big it was, but it never felt that way from the inside. We had our place. How about putting 9th graders with seniors? My middle child is in 9th grade and while she wouldn't be bothered, she prefers being with her own age group and likes the freshman academy for that reason. Also for that reason, a transition to a 10th-grade academy followed by yet another to the senior high doesn't bother her at all. Maybe we should have asked the kids what they think instead of adults who can't relate and only think we know best.
"But the high school is old and needs work." So is the freshman academy. The former SIHS is actually older than the high school. Both campuses are aging, and the district is working on them. It takes time. Some have given knocked my comment about the high school being a Rolls Royce and point to its many issues. My original thought process in that analogy was noting that comparing the Freshman Academy to the High School was like comparing a three-door hatchback to a Rolls Royce. I was simply saying that the high school was a bigger, better campus and putting high schoolers at the freshman academy would be cheating them out of opportunities.
Then when the frustration really kicks in, people say it should be about academics. You can't let the Pride be more important that academics. Let's talk about academics. First, you can get academics anywhere. People homeschool. There are a wealth of private schools in the area. But you didn't homeschool or put you kids in one of those other places. No, you have them at our high school. Why? Can't afford the other options is a popular choice, but a reason we wanted our kids to be in this school was for the opportunities it afforded. To be very specific, we wanted them to have the chance to be in the Pride. We didn't want Union or anywhere in Tulsa. We wanted Broken Arrow. We went there. We liked it. Besides, academics don't happen out on the campus in the populace. They happen in the classroom. I heard that Broken Arrow's student-teacher ratio was 20:1. Yes, some are higher and some are lower, but that's the curse of averages. That ratio means the academics can happen just fine because those occur between students and teachers. Additionally, both the high school and freshman academy have unused space because we have no teachers to fill the rooms. A split won't change that.
That actually can't be solved locally but at the state level where our current government apparently cares more about their agendas than education but that's another topic entirely. Due to the Oklahoma's inability to manage our money, the student-teacher ratio is going up even down to grade levels where there is classroom space available, but the district can't afford the teachers to fill them.
If Broken Arrow was going to entertain a split, it should have been done years ago before we oriented everything to befit a large scale high school. It's not just the band that would suffer in a split. We have dozens of unique academic opportunities that can only exist in a school with a large population. In our high school, find classes with only one instance or with a single teacher. Classes like that can't survive a split because they require a certain level of interest. Look for clubs that you don't find on every campus. Unusual ones with a low population count. Those also wouldn't survive.
So, in the case of our district, the plan on the table takes two overcrowded campuses and shuffles the students around which gives you ... two overcrowded campuses. The most basic solution is more classrooms and teachers, and I mean more than 10 at each campus. More is under construction now, but until you can alleviate the current overcrowding at each campus, moving students around won't help and certainly is not worth the sacrifice of the Pride.
So let's go back to the Pride. Does the Pride deserve to be considered in a decision that would result in its destruction? Yes. That organization has done more for our community than any of us ever will. The band puts nearly 400 students on the field which is more than any other group. It has the largest parent volunteer organization on campus as well. You may or may not know that schools get a grade for the number of parent volunteer hours logged. The Pride parents log enough hours for the school to get an A rating by themselves. Like the concessions at any high school event? Look who's running it. It's the Pride parents who volunteer their time to serve you concessions at your football and soccer games at the high school and freshman academy stadiums. Behind the scenes of those 400-ish students is a cast of thousands running the show. All out of love for the kids and the program. Does something that important to thousands of people deserve consideration?
Words swirl around in my head when it comes to all of this. Besides progress and sacrifice, I also get legacy and tradition. The band was founded in 1929 and the Pride label was first used in the 70's, I believe. So we've had this high school band for 90 years. To call it a tradition is almost too small a word. It is weaved into the town's very fabric and history, and while I know many things go away over the years in the name of progress, we don't want to lose traditions for the sake of someone's misplaced desire to leave a legacy. If this is passed, the legacy of our board will be that they ended the Pride of Broken Arrow. They consciously voted on a plan knowing the consequence that hundreds of students would lose a life experience that has positively impacted our town and its children for decades.
Dissolving the Pride would be like disowning Kristen Chenoweth, and the Pride is actually more famous. It's not just national. It's international in its fame. Every year tens of thousands of people sit in stadiums, hear the name of Broken Arrow, and they wait to leave the stadium because they know they're going to see something amazing. A speaker at the recent Pride banquet, who was never a member and yet still has Pride gear, was wearing a polo with the Pride logo in places like Columbia and Japan, and he met people who knew us. A guy I work with from Indianapolis told me with considerable pride that his local high school got one of our band directors: Mr. Kaflek. They wanted him because he taught at Broken Arrow. They wanted a piece of the Pride to teach them.
The Pride has hosted a drum Corp competition for several summers now that has brought thousands of people into our town as either part of those ensembles or as spectators who follow them. The Pride has also hosted Oklahoma Bandmaster Association state championships which brings thousands to our town from across the state to watch. The Pride has won this for more than 10 years straight. On the most watched parade in the world this year, the name of Broken Arrow was seen by millions of people because of the Pride. Watch What Happens at football games before and after halftime. People come to watch the band, and then they leave. Seats clear up all over the stadium after halftime. So people pay to go to football games, watch the band, and reveal that's what they came for, not to watch football. How many towns in Oklahoma can boast that some people prefer to watch the local band than the football team? The pride of Broken Arrow is literally one of the best things about Broken Arrow, and you want to end it. Some little town in Oklahoma is recognized across the world because of its marching band. And they want to end it.
Like I said, this is not some apocalyptic doomsday prediction. The directors have already told the students that this would happen if the school splits.
From a first-hand perspective on the impact here, I was in the Pride back in 1991-92 when it was required and we didn't win everything. But we went to Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl parade and marched in the Inauguration parade for Bill Clinton. My sister was in D.C. again for Bush's second inauguration. How many of you did that? The Pride is a unique opportunity for our children that will never happen again in their lives. Ever. The reaction of my 6th grader when informed that by the time she reaches 9th grade, there may not be a pride to try out for? Tears. She has been wanting that since she saw the pride perform as a 4th grader. For almost 3 years, it has been in her plans to tryout at the end of 8th grade, and they want to end it. She cried. We consoled her with the idea that it was just a preliminary recommendation and pray that it will never pass. How many more children like her are out there who want more than anything to be a part of that group. It's a major opportunity that will be gone. How many dreams will be shattered? Do they matter?
So does something need to be done? Sure. But we don't need to split the campus. We don't need multiple high schools. There are a wealth of other problems that can also create but I've talked long enough. What we really need is better management of what we have. If we can't manage this, how are we supposes to handle changing things around? There are bigger high schools in the nation with 4, 5, and even 8,000 students in a physical location. Rather than going right to a split, why not investigate their solutions with a big campus? Carmel, IN is a nationally recognized school for its academics and such and it has the Freshman on campus too, giving them 5,000 students. Universities are massive with tens of thousands of students and they manage as well.
Broken Arrow has something amazing right now. We should never want to lose it now or in the future. "But we're growing" people say. According to the current numbers, we have a peak coming with a class of 1500, but looking over all the numbers, it is unique. They're also 2nd graders. The numbers behind it didn't grow. Could we get bigger? Yes. Do I have a suggestion? Well, we need to ensure we manage our funding correctly and ensure what was promised is done. It's 2017 and according to the schedule, our STEM classrooms for the high school were funded last year. They've decided to hold off on those for now. Yeah, we need more classrooms and they won't build them. The high school campus was built for juniors and seniors and a full campus was pushed to capacity by haphazardly adding in the sophomores. I thought that was a bad idea at the time as well.
To alleviate the stress, rather than a third high school, which was proposed, building a sophomore academy was a very popular notion. This would give the current campus plenty of growth room for the future since we've established how many students it can hold. I would be for reallocating the bond money to make that happen.
Even beyond that and beyond the proposal that was slowed down for the moment, and that we hope will not resurface, the community does not realize the good the Pride does for it. They don't realize that people have come here just to be part of that. Alumni stay here so their kids can be a part of it. People who aren't part of the band know it. The guy in charge of the Rose Parade sent a video message for the banquet looking forward to seeing the Pride again, perhaps, in four years. Little does he know that the current proposal means there won't be a Pride to go in four years. The speaker at the banquet looked forward to seeing the progress of our percussion ensembles in the WGI tournaments in ten years. In ten years, we may not be going. If we told someone outside of our band that our school board was considering something to end the Pride, they would think we lost our minds.
Broken Arrow current has one identity. We are Tigers. Businesses support the singularity of the teams and clubs they like because it is easy. There is only one to support. Splitting us would split the town. We would have to pick a side. Businesses would too. Bond issues would forever have to appeal to both sides or it won't pass. That's what the facilitator we brought in said to someone after one of the meetings. He thought the split was a terrible idea. He's also from a district with a 4000+ population high school.
We need progress, but we need the right kind of progress. The proposal we had was wrong for us in many ways, and we hope to never see it again. There is some suggestion in the wording from the district that we might get it back with some extra explanation showing that they did not listen to us and did what they wanted. We want something that will be beneficial to the most students, not ruin the town, and solve our underlying problem.
Monday, May 8, 2017
An Attempt to Inform On A Reply
So, my post on the Broken Arrow school split was seen by a lot of people, and obviously, not everyone agreed. Interestingly, however, a lot of feedback has resulted from people whose response was uninformed and unresearched. I intended to do a longer post, but this one came through Facebook, and I thought I'd address it.
"George. Unfortunately what you think and the politics that play out. Broken Arrow needs at least 2 high schools and possibly 3. I personally among others within the school system tend to agree. Split the schools up including Pride. The system is TOO large and needs to be split up so it will give the others fair share of making the Pride. Two Pride in Broken Arrow is not a BAD thing. Let's face it, Broken Arrow is too BIG for one High School. I'm not the only one that feels this way!!
Never have been a fan of yours even when you worked at US Cellular. To me you were nothing but a trouble maker and I still see this as true. You sir are NOT a team player. You want to create havoc among thE TEAM and others that I know tend to agree. I personally hope that BA is split up in ALL areas including PRIDE."
Part of me gets that this is a bit personal. I am, shall we say, in with a large group of people who do not want to see the schools split. Hence, I am standing with my "team" and assisting them. I admit to being a bit of a troublemaker, but in this case, I have a cause that I am standing up for, and I believe this is the right way to go.
Are there a fair number of people for the split? Oh yes. Plenty. The problem is that many of those opinions ring similar to this one. It isn't a bad thing. More bands are good. The high school is too big. The city can support more than one. In principle, these opinions are not wrong, but we also have to consider the local environment and what we've built so far.
Two Prides? No. It was established right from the start that the Pride as we know it would end. Due to OSSAA regulations, each school would need its own competitive marching band and due to the dilution of talent and smaller base to draw from, the optional extracurricular Pride would need to return to the required presence for all band students. Not everyone wants to be in marching band and enjoy the option. Additionally, they indicated that since it would be required, they would have trouble asking for the presently high fees associated with being in Pride. A reduction in cost is a reduction in everything, and some of the national competitions or traveling they do now would be cut down considerably. When it was required in my time, OBA was pretty much the end of our season with a "big trip" every other year.
The system is too large? That is a matter of perspective. We're actually comparable to Union and Jenks in our high school size. And when it comes to Broken Arrow's size, that matters less than the number of students at the campus. We hurt ourselves considerably when we added in the sophomores to the population and made a large campus overwhelming. We have also established, however, how many students it can hold, so pulling those sophomores back out would leave plenty of growth room.
And there's that "fair share" argument. By having more of the same thing, somehow that gives more students more opportunities. Knowing that the Pride as it is with all of its present opportunities will be gone, that will actually be one less thing available to the students. We also know that there are many, many activities possible at a large high school that a smaller one cannot support, both extracurricular and academic. We have specialty classes for students that help them learn in their desired future fields. One of our favorites to mention is an AP Physics 2 class that has 8 students. It used to have 12 before 4 dropped at semester. It's that hard. That class would not survive a split because it wouldn't have enough people. There is also only one AP Physics teacher. Would the class be limited to only one campus? Would only half the district get AP Physics? Would they have to hire a second special teacher for that with the money we don't have for that purpose? A split would be a really, really expensive endeavor which is bad in the current economic climate for schools.
I am formulating a much larger post addressing a lot of the pro-split opinions I've heard in the past couple of months. This thing isn't dead yet, but I do hope some serious discussion is going to to make the best choice for OUR district. Large high schools work, and they work well. They're all over the country in populations larger than ours, so there's plenty of precedents.
"George. Unfortunately what you think and the politics that play out. Broken Arrow needs at least 2 high schools and possibly 3. I personally among others within the school system tend to agree. Split the schools up including Pride. The system is TOO large and needs to be split up so it will give the others fair share of making the Pride. Two Pride in Broken Arrow is not a BAD thing. Let's face it, Broken Arrow is too BIG for one High School. I'm not the only one that feels this way!!
Never have been a fan of yours even when you worked at US Cellular. To me you were nothing but a trouble maker and I still see this as true. You sir are NOT a team player. You want to create havoc among thE TEAM and others that I know tend to agree. I personally hope that BA is split up in ALL areas including PRIDE."
Part of me gets that this is a bit personal. I am, shall we say, in with a large group of people who do not want to see the schools split. Hence, I am standing with my "team" and assisting them. I admit to being a bit of a troublemaker, but in this case, I have a cause that I am standing up for, and I believe this is the right way to go.
Are there a fair number of people for the split? Oh yes. Plenty. The problem is that many of those opinions ring similar to this one. It isn't a bad thing. More bands are good. The high school is too big. The city can support more than one. In principle, these opinions are not wrong, but we also have to consider the local environment and what we've built so far.
Two Prides? No. It was established right from the start that the Pride as we know it would end. Due to OSSAA regulations, each school would need its own competitive marching band and due to the dilution of talent and smaller base to draw from, the optional extracurricular Pride would need to return to the required presence for all band students. Not everyone wants to be in marching band and enjoy the option. Additionally, they indicated that since it would be required, they would have trouble asking for the presently high fees associated with being in Pride. A reduction in cost is a reduction in everything, and some of the national competitions or traveling they do now would be cut down considerably. When it was required in my time, OBA was pretty much the end of our season with a "big trip" every other year.
The system is too large? That is a matter of perspective. We're actually comparable to Union and Jenks in our high school size. And when it comes to Broken Arrow's size, that matters less than the number of students at the campus. We hurt ourselves considerably when we added in the sophomores to the population and made a large campus overwhelming. We have also established, however, how many students it can hold, so pulling those sophomores back out would leave plenty of growth room.
And there's that "fair share" argument. By having more of the same thing, somehow that gives more students more opportunities. Knowing that the Pride as it is with all of its present opportunities will be gone, that will actually be one less thing available to the students. We also know that there are many, many activities possible at a large high school that a smaller one cannot support, both extracurricular and academic. We have specialty classes for students that help them learn in their desired future fields. One of our favorites to mention is an AP Physics 2 class that has 8 students. It used to have 12 before 4 dropped at semester. It's that hard. That class would not survive a split because it wouldn't have enough people. There is also only one AP Physics teacher. Would the class be limited to only one campus? Would only half the district get AP Physics? Would they have to hire a second special teacher for that with the money we don't have for that purpose? A split would be a really, really expensive endeavor which is bad in the current economic climate for schools.
I am formulating a much larger post addressing a lot of the pro-split opinions I've heard in the past couple of months. This thing isn't dead yet, but I do hope some serious discussion is going to to make the best choice for OUR district. Large high schools work, and they work well. They're all over the country in populations larger than ours, so there's plenty of precedents.
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