I ran into one of my favorite music educators while participating in the Fourth of July parade last month. Dr. Jane Van Middlesworh, Dr. Van to her kids, used to teach band and orchestra at Jones Elementary before that highly successful program was scrapped two years ago by the central office despite howls of parental opposition to it's demise. Welborn Middle School was the benficiary of Jones School's loss.
Some of you may have read a N&R article several weeks back about Welborn student Brandon Davis who started an Aycock style Drum Line at that school. I met Brandon and his charges (including Dr. Van, marching and playing her tenor sax) after the parade when the drum lines from both schools spontaniously squared off in a Drum Line playoff that was right out of the movie that inspired the formation of both groups. A large crowd gathered to watch - the kids were in heaven. (by all accounts, Aycock came out on top).
As the young musicians were walking to their respective buses I asked Dr. Van how it was going - she was all aflutter, "this is the best thing in the world for these kids." She went on to tell me that she was going broke keeping the thing going because there is no school system support for the project. In a subsequent email, she also lamented, "It is very difficult for me to teach this as I am about as far outside my box as I can get." Best as I remember, Dr. Van is a violinist by training.
I'm getting Dr. Van together with Aycock's drumline mentor, Jimmy Cheek. Jimmy has developed a working relationship with NC A&T's music department for instructional help and has discovered other resources as well. What Dr. Van needs, however, is the same thing that Aycock's drumline needs. Affirmation from Guilford County Schools that they are doing the right thing and funding to back it up. As it is now, both Aycock and Welborn are getting by utilizing hook and crook... and personal funds. Dr. Van again, "I have bought a lot of equipment with my own funds so we have a 22 piece drum line. But the continuing financial needs are eating me up."
Recent plans to expand GCS's alternative education program for disruptive students was thwarted by the recent refusal of the County Commissioners to increase funding. Included in the denied funds was $1M for an expanded SCALES "alternative school" - effectively a holding tank for kids who have demonstrated that they are not interested in learning.
You would think, after all of the publicity that Aycock's and Welborn's extra-curricular music programs have received, that someone inside the school system would have figured out the promise of how these drumlines can effect profound change in the very students that would likely populate an alternative school.
For one-tenth of the amount that was to have gone to an improved alternative school, the school system could outfit ten Aycock modeled drumlines. Couple this with the high-achievement academic requirements that must be met in order to obtain and maintain a highly sought-after spot on "the line", the programs' success is all but assured.
There is an old corporate adage that used to get a lot of the blame for an institution's reluctance to try new things that had been proven to be effective elsewhere: "Not invented here". This corporate mantra pre-dates the current, "think outside the box" buzz phrase by a couple of decades.
The folks in charge of our schools need to get over the fact that the middle school drumline concept sprang from the grassroots. They need to be made to see how such a low cost/high benefit program can make a huge difference even though it skipped the study and development steps that are normally required by bureaucrats.
The drumline program's effectiveness is now being proven daily in two Guilford middle schools, this should be proof and reason enough to sanction and fund the programs... then duplicate the concept elsewhere.
6:18:28 AM 
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