With the fallout from many state’s budget shortfall, it’s likely that local funding of music education and jobs will be affecting you in some way. However, the specifics may vary from district to district. Whatever they are, it is important to document your priorities to ensure that every communication you make to your local decision makers in some way supports those priorities.
With a clearly defined message, you can evaluate every action or communication in your plan to ensure that it supports this message in some way. Your message should center on the fact that music education is curricular and should not take a disproportionate share of cuts compared to other academic subjects.
- Establish at least 3 priorities that you see as essential to maintaining music in our schools. Write about why you chose these priorities and why you feel they are important.
- Write about 5 areas of communication you could possibly establish in your community/school that will support the priorities you chose (see list below as examples). Always focus communication on how music education benefits every student and, where possible, get parents and community leaders to champion the cause. It is important that you support music education; however, it will be more effective for members of the community to speak out on why it must be a vital part of every student’s education.
The following are a few ideas about how to be advocates for music education.
- Invite administrators and school board members to rehearsals/classroom to observe.
- Communicate your program’s successes with local media.
- Include advocacy material in your concert program, on your program’s website, and within any regular communications you have with parents.