Nebo District preserves music for sixth-graders

SPANISH FORK — Parents who sought to preserve band, orchestra and choir classes for sixth-graders in the Nebo School District are singing a victory song.

District chiefs have agreed to pilot a program in the northern edge of the south Utah County district that would allow elementary school students to attend first-period music classes at Mapleton and Springville junior high schools.

The game of musical classroom chairs is driven by a plan to eliminate middle schools in the district. Under the new enrollment plan, instead of a middle school, sixth graders will attend elementary schools and seventh-graders will go to junior high schools.

Parents have protested that sixth-graders will miss out on classes they would have been able to take if they remained in middle school — band, choir and orchestra classes.

To lobby the Board of Education to keep the programs, they formed the Nebo Performing Arts Council. The 350-member group has a Web site, www.nebomusicfriends.org.

As part of their effort to persuade the district, they herald studies that show music education boosts fine motor skills, social dynamics and SAT scores. Other studies show students who start music classes early are more likely to continue in the older grades.

Rick Nielsen, Nebo's director of elementary education, said administrators are "very supportive of the junior high pilot program. We are committed to helping with design and implementation and hope that it will be a very successful program."

The district, however, is not making any promises that it will be expanded districtwide, Nielsen said. Nebo's school board recently passed a resolution stating the board's belief that music education needs to be strong in elementary schools — and those will soon include sixth grade.

Board members said music education should be equally accessible to all students, not just sixth-graders whose parents have the time and money for them to participate in junior high band, choir and orchestra.

"We want to attune our teachers more to what the curriculum is, the resources available and provide training to them," Nielsen said.

In the past, regular classroom teachers have taught music to their elementary students, but the quality of instruction varied.

"We would like to think the teachers follow the music (state curriculum), but the realist in me says that has probably (has been placed) on the back burner," Nielsen said.