​Music Educators, Advocates and Parents: 

By now, many of you have heard the wonderful news about the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and how music is now being listed as a stand-alone subject.  While we celebrate this success, we encourage all of our members, industry leaders and parents to join with us in continuing state and local advocacy follow-on work. 
 
NAfME is offering a free webinar providing you insight into ESSA while also highlighting advocacy resources provided to you as you prepare for state and school district implementation.
 
Date: March 1, 2016 at 4pm Eastern.
 
To Register, click here: http://bit.ly/ESSAwebinar
  
Presenters:

• Chris Woodside, Assistant Executive Director, Center for Advocacy and Constituency Engagement
• Lynn Tuttle, Senior Regulatory Policy Advisor
• Shannon Kelly, Director, Advocacy
• Thomas Stefaniak, Director, Constituency Engagement and Organizational Development

 
Participants will:

• Learn "what is ESSA?"
• Learn about NAfME's advocacy activities related to ESSA over the past several years.
• Understand how music education is addressed in ESSA and what specific funding streams are available.
• Find out how to spread the word and effectively advocate for enhanced music education funding in your state or school district through ESSA.
• Access NAfME's ESSA resources and learn how to get involved in our annual Collegiate Advocacy Summit.
• For nonmembers, learn about the wealth of NAfME member benefits.

Jeffco Public Schools is seeking input on the 2016/2017 budget, and every parent, student, employee, and community member is invited to put in their two cents. An online interactive budget tool offers the opportunity to weigh in on school construction, extracurricular activities, transportation, compensation, and more. Go to http://jeffcoschools.citizenbudget.com/ to make your Performing Arts voice heard!

Right in our own back yard. Look at the results from Chappelow Arts Magnet school in Greeley! This Greeley Tribune article is full of anecdotes about how the school achieves such tremendous results compared to others in the district - and they all have to do with Performing Arts. The lessons learned here can be used in ANY school, including yours. Talk to your accountability committees and your principals about funding programs like these. Budgeting for the next school year has already begun.

Thanks to the many people who sent this link to us over the past few days!  Normally, a post like this would just be a link from Facebook, but there's more to this which is relevant to Jeffco, so we felt the need to comment further.

First, take a look at the blog posting of the 10 Reasons Being in Marching Band Makes You a Better Person.  When you read that list, the first reaction is likely, "well of course".  Now consider all the work that the community, including the Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition, has done to create Jeffco's Vision 2020.  (link is here)  

Look at how marching band supports the vision.  The Jeffco vision seeks to create students with the following competencies:

• Content Mastery
• Critical Thinking & Creativity
• Civic and Global Engagement
• Communication
• Self Direction & Personal Responsibility

What we noticed from the 10 Reasons blog post is that there is tremendous overlap with Jeffco's vision.  Content Mastery - Absolutely, from the arts perspective.  Critical Thinking and Creativity - Yes, from development of the performances to dealing with adversity as unexpected challenges come up.  Civic & Global Engagement - Again, yes.  Marching bands themselves not only compete, but hold community festivals, perform concerts, and march in parades.  Communication - Absolutely!  It's a critical part of performance.  Self Direction and Personal Responsibility - Again, absolutely.  Marching band is all consuming for three months at the start of the school year.  It absolutely teaches self direction and responsibility.  

So read the "10 Reasons" blog post and then think about the type of student Jeffco is trying to create.  Much of the same can be said of any performing arts classes, not just marching band.  Then go out and advocate for ever stronger performing arts programs in your school and at the district level - because they directly support the vision of the future student.

Congratulations to all the Jeffco Marching Bands who competed in the regionals: D'Evelyn, Alameda, Green Mountain, Conifer, Evergreen, Arvada, Pomona, Dakota Ridge, Columbine, Arvada West, Ralston Valley, Bear Creek, Lakewood, and Chatfield.

Of those, we had 12 bands which made state competition:

• Class 2A: D'Evelyn (2nd place!)
• Class 3A: Conifer, Evergreen, Green Mountain (3rd place!)
• Class 4A: Dakota Ridge, Pomona
• Class 5A: Arvada West, Bear Creek, Chatfield, Columbine, Lakewood, Ralston Valley

The above bands will next compete in either state quarter or semi finals, depending on class.

For 1A, 2A, and 3A, the semi finals are Oct 26 at CSU Pueblo.
For 4A and 5A, the quarterfinals are Oct 23 at CSU Ft. Collins.

Here is a link to the Colorado Bandmasters state championship information web site: http://www.cbamarching.com/2015statechampionshipinformation.html

The Arvada Chamber of Commerce will be holding a school board election forum this Friday the 16th.  The event will take place at the Arvada Center at 6901 Wadsworth Blvd. starting at 7:00 am.  The event will feature an overview of the role of a school board and a Q&A with the candidates themselves.  The cost is $15 and will include breakfast starting at 7:00.  For tickets, follow this link.  Come out to learn more about each candidate's platform, background, and philosophy.

When was the last time you watched a high school marching band?  Perhaps it was when you were in high school?  You should check out the Jeffco marching bands as they perform in weekly, usually Saturday, events against marching bands from across the state and the Rocky Mountain region.  You will be stunned at the complexity of the music, the marching, and the shows they put on.  As one parent put it, "that's not the marching band we had!"

To find upcoming performances, you can check in with your local high school's instrumental music department or booster club.  You can also find most events, including the state finals schedule, posted on the Colorado Bandmasters Association Marching Affairs web site here.

Admission is inexpensive and you are certain to be very entertained by our very talented students!

It's National Arts in Education week.  Designated by congress in 2010, this is a week designed to help build awareness, to celebrate, and to advocate for arts in education.  For ideas on how to do this, follow this link to the web site with more information.

With Filmmaker Sara Flatow, the Association of Music Parents will be hosting a webinar on the making of the movie, and how it will be used to influence education policy decisions in Washington and across the country.  To register for the webinar, follow this link.  (Free to the 1st 100 people and AMP members.)  A summary of the webinar is below:


The Making of a Documentary Feature Film about the True Importance of Music Education
Thursday, August 13, 2015 6:00pm Mountain Time

Hear from the Filmmaker and why she has set out to create this project!

My name is Sara Flatow and I was in band from the seventh grade through my senior year at the University of Florida. I have so many fond memories—from perfecting my clarinet embouchure to marching in front of thousands of screaming football fans. I had the time of my life, made lifelong friends, and I cherished every moment. I knew band was fun and good for me, but I really didn’t understand the impact it had on my life until much later.

In January of 2012, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This sent me on an unprecedented journey that took everything I had to get through. The skills I developed in band—determination, listening, and resilience—all proved critical in my fight. After nine surgeries and countless procedures, the power and importance of music education has never been more clear to me.

Over and over I hear stories just like mine—people with real-world challenges who derive strength from their music. It pains me to hear that arts programs are being cut throughout the country. Countless studies show that the benefits of these classes are vast and last a lifetime. What other academic subject or activity engages the whole brain and, in the case of marching band, the whole body?

Something must be done.I was unable to sit idly by and watch these critical education programs get gutted. I decided it was time to make a film that captured what band is really about. Far too many people (including those making budgetary decisions) think a band’s job is to entertain a crowd during halftime at a football game.
They do not know any better. And that’s on us.

Our goal is simple: we want to use this film to raise awareness about the far-reaching impact of music education. From discipline to teamwork, our documentary film will showcase what a great music education can do for children. Just as importantly, it will focus on how the skills and bonds created in their music education will influence the rest of their lives no matter what path they take.

We are titling our documentary Marching Beyond Halftime and, with your help in producing the film, we will deliver a copy to every single member of the United States Congress.

Join us for the conversation with filmmaker Sara Flatow, see some footage from early video shoots, and learn how your program can get involved in the project.

The US Senate has passed the Every Child Achieves Act.  The bill now goes to conference committee with the US House.  In this bill, Music and Arts are considered core subjects, which will hopefully begin to unwind the damage done by No Child Left Behind.

Here is a link to a story with more information on how Performing Arts are impacted by this.

The Colorado Symphony has announced an initiative in partnership with Denver Arts & Venues to provide free tickets to organizations, including schools, serving primarily low income families.  They are for concerts throughout the season and are on a first come, first served basis.  For information on how to request tickets, follow this link.

NOTE: JPAAC takes no sides for or against the organizations which conducted the survey.  We simply were informed about the survey results by one of our members and wanted to share with you the importance given to arts, music, & PE by the general population.

The Center for Popular Democracy and In the Public Interest surveyed 1000 registered voters in January and asked what their greatest concerns were with respect to public education across our country and within their own community.  The top three concerns, in order were: Lack of parental involvement, Too much focus on standardized testing, and Cuts to funding for programs like art, music, and PE. The full survey results can be found here.  Below is a high level graphic of the results.

We have released our latest newsletter.  This one provides updates to the Jeffco Public Schools Vision and Strategy projects.  It is also posted online here.  (It is substantially similar to the news posting immediately preceding this one.)

Yesterday, we completed the community input part of the Jeffco Vision 2020 project.  JPAAC was asked to assist and we have posted other updates about the project below on our news page.  Here is what has been accomplished, current status, and next steps of the project.

Accomplishments

The vision documentation is almost complete.  We looked at a draft final version yesterday and provided our last alterations to that version.  It is extremely close to final.  In the end, we want to see our students all have the following competencies when they graduate in 2020 and beyond:

• Content Mastery (Math, Science, English, Arts, etc.)
• Critical Thinking & Creativity
• Civic and Global Engagement
• Communications
• Self Direction & Personal Responsibility

These names are subject to slight alteration in the final version based on our input yesterday.  Each of these high level competencies has many sub-competencies we want to see in any graduate.  Again, these are subject to slight alteration based on yesterday’s work, but last posted draft is available on the project website if you want to look at it.  Download the .pdf file at this link.  It won’t change materially from this version, but it will be cleaned up, slight changes in wording, and overlapping concepts removed.

Current Status

The work is essentially done on the vision.  There is a need to incorporate the final feedback of the team from yesterday into the documentation, but it will be very similar to the link above, just in a much more marketable and understandable view.

Next Steps

• The final vision documentation will be distributed to the team in the next week or so.
• We have also been working on graphics to represent the vision.  We have been asked not to share drafts of those yet, but when finalized, they will be available as well.
• The vision will be presented to the Jeffco Board of Education on May 7 to gain approval.  Anyone attending that meeting will be able to see the final product, pending board approval.
• 5 of us from the team of 60 are carrying over to a 25 person strategic planning team.  I gave an overview of that effort here.  We are the ones charged with ensuring the upcoming strategy work is aligned with the vision.  I am one of those people, and will be providing updates about that effort as well.

Next Wednesday night, April 22, through Saturday night, April 25, the Arvada West Theater Company will present "Jekyll & Hyde, The Musical". Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for students and available at www.showtix4u.com. Come on out and support the Jeffco students who work so hard to put on quality productions!

If you have an event at your school, open to the public, let us know about it and we will be happy to put out the information for you!

The Following Text is from a NAfME Email Sent to All Members.  It is very exciting news.

We Owe It All To YouOn the eve of the 108th birthday of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the best possible present was handed to us: recognition of music as a core subject in draft federal education policy.

This is an unprecedented enumeration in proposed federal legislation.
 

This is an incredibly exciting day, and we are all so proud to represent the work that you do for young people, in schools and institutions of higher learning, all across the country. Thank you for your passion, persistence, and patience- YOU have earned this. Please take a moment to celebrate before we get back to it!

Early this year, NAfME mobilized more than 10,000 music education advocates to send letters to their lawmakers-and the result is a new bipartisan Senate Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) proposal, the "Every Child Achieves Act of 2015," that retains the core academic subject section from No Child Left Behind, and, additionally, adds "music" as a specifically enumerated core academic subject. 

"This is game-changing news," said NAfME Assistant Executive Director Chris Woodside. "This is an enormous achievement, and the DIRECT result of the incredible grassroots advocacy efforts of our members over the past few months. Today we are celebrating our members as we celebrate this crucial step forward."

"The benefits of listing the arts as core demonstrate the importance of recognizing our nation's education priorities at the federal level," Woodsidewrote recently in Roll Call. "The elimination of core academic subjects from ESEA would jeopardize national efforts to ensure that all students, regardless of race or economic status, have access to high quality school music programs. . . . music advocates . . . must engage with Congress to urge the inclusion of music in federal statute."

As the Senate HELP Committee marks up this new proposal next week, NAfME will be present during those deliberations, standing for our members, in order to ensure that this crucial language is preserved in the draft.

We owe it to our members, who have stood by us for more than a century, for making NAfME the National Voice for Music Education. Founded 108 years ago this week, in 1907, NAfME today represents 140,000 student and teacher members who are members of our middle/junior- and senior-high school Tri-M Music Honor Societies, Collegiate NAfME chapters on campuses around the nation, and  our more than 60,000 PreK-12 music teachers, who work daily to ensure our students receive a quality music education-which prepares them for the 21st century workplace. 

Again, we thank each and everyone of you for your hard work in and out of the classroom to ensure that EVERY student has access to quality music education. BRAVO!

Nominations for the Tony Awards for excellence in theater education are now open through the end of the month. Nominate a teacher you feel has done a great job. Details can be found here: http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/news/articles/2014-10-23/201410231414085029016.html

Thursday, Feb 19, was the 2nd of 4 workshops for Vision 2020.  We were divided into 9 tables averaging 5 or 6 each.

Each table discussed the desired future competencies of a Jeffco graduate that each person had brought back from their respective groups.  JPAAC brought the ones from the previous news post below.  Each table then came up with a synergized list of 5 competencies along with detail to begin to define each competency.  Themes were very similar across all tables and were similar to the list we took to the workshop.

From there, each table was charged with creating a visual representation of their thinking, so we spent a few hours working out options for visuals.  Lastly, the visuals were voted on.  

Next steps:

• The next workshop is March 19
  
• Warren Tech students are going to work up some professional graphics of the visuals for us to look at at meeting 3.  We will pick one which will be used to represent the school system's vision.
  
• Because so many of our competencies are so similar across the groups, the facilitator, Dan McMinimee, Syna Morgan, and a few others within the district are going to work out a proposed set of language to convey the competencies.  Essentially a starting point for the final draft language we will use.  The community representatives will then work to finalize this over the next two meetings.
  
• Our homework for the 3rd meeting is to come up with a list of the top 3 implications for the district as we move towards trying to create a student that possesses the list of competencies.  What needs to change to create that student?  This seems to be a segway to the strategic planning.
  

OF SIGNIFICANT NOTE:
We got a good win for Performing Arts in this meeting.  When we were building the list of competencies, "STEM + Arts -> STEAM" was prevalent and discussed in the group as a critical piece of core knowlege.  The importance of arts, including Performing Arts, dominated a piece of the discussion.  It was very supported, no dissension, and it was the only core subject spoken about.

Jeffco's next Vision 2020 (see prior news posts for details) planning meeting is Thursday.  We were asked during the first meeting in January to brainstorm the key competencies a future Jeffco graduate should have.  From there, we took the brainstorming ideas back to our respective community members (you!) for feedback to pick a top 5.  Based on your feedback, the Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition has drafted the following list of 6 (yes, one more than was requested) key competencies that we are prepared to take to the meeting on Thursday.  

1. Motivated & self-directed – Wants to always learn more.
   
2. Creative and innovative thinker – Views issues from different perspectives, able to solve problems with creative solutions.
   
3. Critical thinker – Effectively & efficiently takes in, processes, and draw conclusions from information.
   
4. Cultural competency/global citizen – Possesses the ability to interact with and work effectively with people from all walks of life across the world.  Possesses an understanding of the ever changing world in which we live.
   
5. Skilled with content knowledge – Possesses knowledge about subjects such as science, math, English, finance, economics, and history.  Understands when and where to look up content knowledge as needed.
   
6. Accountability, morality, responsibility – Possesses the attributes of what we generally think of as a “good” person.
   

If you have any additional feedback before Thursday, please send us a message using the link in the upper right or address it to jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com.

Jeffco Public Schools has commenced its strategic planning process to build the school district of the future.  That process has started with creating a vision of what the future state should look like.  The Jeffco Performing Arts Advocacy Coalition was asked, as one source of community input, to assist Jeffco Public Schools with this effort.

We want your participation and feedback!

The vision development started on January 28.  There is now a public website up and running with information on what we are doing and where we are going.  Here is a link to the main page: https://sites.google.com/a/jeffcoschools.us/jeffco-2020-vision-development/home.  From the main page, you can see the overall planning process and dates, and there are links to the working group membership as well as the results of meeting #1 on January 28.

What we need from you before Feb 19:

Each working group member has “homework” – to engage their respective communities throughout the process.  If you click on the meeting 1 link from the website main page, or click here: https://sites.google.com/a/jeffcoschools.us/jeffco-2020-vision-development/meeting-1, you can see the work we did during the first meeting.  In short, it was a working session where we:

• Started by defining the biggest changes in society in the last 30 years.  You can view the list the working group came up with on the web page.
  
• Defined the skills/competencies that students would need, based on these changes which have occurred.  Again, you can view the entire list on the web page.
  
• We then refined the list down to the top 20 competencies that the working group felt would be needed.  These can be seen in the .pdf file attachment at the bottom of the web page.
  

The input we need from you before Feb 19 is to take a look at the content of the meeting #1 web page and then consider the competencies our students will need and provide your thoughts.  You can use the .pdf file of the top 20 we came up with, look at the entire list on the web page, or suggest your own that we may have overlooked.  Please send your thoughts to jeffcopaadvocacy@gmail.com.  We have been charged to produce for the next meeting on Feb 19 a shortened list of our 6-7 absolute top priority competencies, as defined by input from our respective communities.  

If you have any questions at all, contact us at our email address and we’ll reply as quickly as possible.

We’d really appreciate your thoughts!

In partnership with the Colorado PTA, family and community guides to the Colorado Academic Standards (in English and Spanish) have been created to help families and communities across Colorado better understand the goals and outcomes of the Colorado Academic Standards. The guides describe the “big picture” purpose of the standards, as road maps to help ensure that all Colorado students graduate ready for life, college, and careers. They also provide overviews of the learning expectations for each of the ten content areas of the standards and offer examples of educational experiences that students may engage in, and that families could support, during the school year.  For a link to the new guides/standards, see our "helpful links" page. We have placed a link to the guides there.

If you are not on our mailing list (and you should be!), the January, 2015 newsletter has been uploaded to the site.  You can find it off the top banner under More/Multimedia/Newsletter Archive.

We created a how to document describing suggested changes in your approach to advocating within Jeffco.  Student Based Budgeting has changed everything.  In short, you approach now needs to be directly with your school.  Click the "How to Advocate" link in the banner at the top of any page.  This new document is the first on the page.

We have been hard at work updating the website over the past few weeks.  Specifically, we have added:

• A new subsection on grant opportunities.  This is an area where we have listed, and will continue to add, grant opportunities for school programs as well as individual students.
• A new subsection on advocacy.  We have taken a few of our favorite advocacy white papers and links and posted them here.  In addition, we have written an new white paper on how to advocate within the Jeffco school system under the new approach to budgeting called Student Based Budgeting.  If you aren't familiar with it, or where the correct pressure points for effective advocacy are, this is a good document to read.
• New research to our Research and Data subsection.
• New links to useful resources under our Helpful Links subsection.

We are continuously adding content.  Check back to see what's new by viewing the latest news on our home page or by subscribing to our Facebook, Twitter, and email list.  See the links at the upper right of any web page within the site.  

Gavan Goodrich, the Principal of Ralston Valley High School, attends performing arts programs put on by his students.  He wrote the below as a part of the RVHS October 21 parent newsletter.  In it, he discusses the importance of performing arts on a student's learning and as a part of a high performing school.  We were, of course, thrilled to read it and asked for and received his permission to post it here on our web site.
------------------------------------------
Dear Parents and Guardians,

Last week I attended the Regional Qualifying Marching Band Contest where Ralston Valley advanced to state for the 15th year in a row.  Also, I had the opportunity to listen to and enjoy the Ralston Valley Choir perform at their fall concert last Tuesday.  In each case, I was very impressed with the quality of direction, and the excellent level of performance by our students. Ken Sawyer and Jeff Talley put in untold hours of time and effort to make the RV music programs the pride of Jeffco.

I am a true believer that the performing arts are an essential component of a high performing school.  As our teachers push our students in class and expect the best from our students, so do the directors of our performing arts groups.  I believe that the things students do and learn through their experiences on the band practice field during the week, or the hours spent within choir sectionals, contribute to a well-rounded and fully developed person.  On the inside of band and choir programs it is evident that there are a broad range of students with multiple interests.  Academically, they represent some of RV’s best performers.  They represent football, volleyball, soccer, tennis, softball, golf, cross country (that’s just the fall sports).  They also have students who are on our yearbook and newspaper staff, student government, and the pom squad and cheer.

The kinds of things students are learning in our music programs dovetail well with what our teachers work on with our students in class; they experience  hard work, focus, goal orientation, teamwork, grit and determination, and the ability to practice things over and over and over to achieve excellence on the final assessment (the performance).  Great schools like Ralston Valley are developed and maintained through the depth and quality of all of the extra curricular activities and groups.  Our music programs deliver depth and quality everyday. In the end, our students are the beneficiaries of these fine programs.

Gavan