Dear Parents of Orchestra and Choir Students,

You are receiving this letter and attached petition because you have a child in either the Elementary, Middle, or High School orchestra/choir.  As you may or may not know, our school district has proposed cutting the third grade strings program, third grade choir program, and has fired the sole middle school choir teacher. They are proposing that Ms. Beadle should teach all middle school and high school choir programs.  Clearly this would be impossible, as she already has a full schedule at the high school level. I am sending this petition because both of my children have been seriously involved in music programs since elementary school in Basking Ridge and I can’t imagine how different their lives would be without the amazing music teachers and unbelievable music programs in our school system. 

My son is currently a junior at Ridge and my daughter graduated from Ridge several years ago.  My son will be double majoring in music and finance in college and my daughter continues to play cello in college. I moved to Basking Ridge 11 years ago, specifically because of the phenomenal music program and high level of academics.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much the music program here has meant to them and what an incredibly positive effect it has had on them as individuals.  It has taught them discipline, empathy, and creativity. They have developed intense, long term friendships through the music community at school. They have found a sense of belonging.  Music has served as a source of inspiration for them. The music teachers have served as incredible mentors for both of my kids. And most of all, music has served to provide joy and comfort and a sense of balance during times of stress and anxiety.

We have hundreds of kids involved in the music programs including orchestra, chorus and band across all of our schools in Bernards Township. The benefits to all of these hundreds of kids is enormous.  Imagine if music reduced anxiety enough in just one child to prevent them from using drugs or alcohol or if just one child found his or her place of belonging in the music community preventing him or her from becoming severely depressed. Music also goes hand in hand with improved spatial-temporal skills, math skills and creative writing skills in English.

Losing the third grade string program in elementary school will have a devastating trickle down effect, decreasing the number of students that start learning instruments in elementary school, and therefore decreasing the number of students in the orchestra in middle and high school. Losing the third grade choir program and the entire choir program in middle school would likely lead to the loss of all choir students in high school, meaning no musicals, acapella, choirs, etc.  I can’t even imagine how devastating a loss this would be to the student and parent community in our district.

In addition, I fail to see how eliminating the third grade string and choir program saves any significant amount of money, as they are not suggesting eliminating any teachers at the elementary level.  I am also confused about why only the string and choir programs were mentioned as potentially being cut and there was no mention of the band program? There are many band teachers across the elementary, middle and high school. Shouldn’t the cuts be equally spread across all three programs, band, orchestra and choir if they are going to happen, instead of singling out only certain programs?  

In the thought exchange under academic programs, the 2nd most important thought out of 186 was : “Continue with the music and arts program. These activities are essential to students' overall education.” The district seems to be completely disregarding what is of top importance to our community! We have students in all our schools that play in regionals, All-State, and All-Eastern music groups. We have kids that go to MSM and Juilliard every weekend. I would ask you to really consider how incredibly beneficial our tremendous music programs are to our students and the incredible level of talent and participation that we have across the board in music in our schools.  Losing any aspect of the music program would be a tremendous loss for the district and might carry more risks long-term than any short term benefits.

If you would like to show your support for keeping all of our existing music programs in place, please sign this petition. This petition will be submitted to the board before the May 5 deadline for finalizing the budget and decisions related to elimination of the music program.  Your support is greatly appreciated!!! (Please do not donate money)

If in addition to signing this petition, you would like to send a letter to the board, I encourage you to do so!  In addition, please forward this petition to other people if possible.  We would like to get as many signatures as possible before May 5.  Thanks!