A smiling teacher looks out at the young strings players: eyes on her, instruments poised, sheet music ready on stands.
“Do I care if you make mistakes?” she asks.
“No!” they shout.
“What do I care about?” she questions.
“That we try!”
And with a satisfied nod, Ms. P, otherwise known as Colleen Phillips, begins conducting middle school students in the day’s exercises.
Who knew one of the best tools in the battle to keep kids interested and involved in school was the violin? Or the clarinet? Or the upright bass?
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Phillips loves passing along her experience to a new generation of musicians.
Some of the students in Phillips’s classes at Lane Middle School are part of
the b instrumental program in Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS).
Large public school districts like FWCS know many of their students face all kinds of challenges to their school attendance and attention—ranging from issues at home to different cultural backgrounds.
There are a high percentage of economically strapped families, too, and recent years have seen fewer students involved in music programs at FWCS.
While participating in band and orchestra has long been acknowledged as positively affecting students’ success in school, quality instruments aren’t in the household budget for many families.
A good violin or trumpet could cost anywhere from $300-$1200. So to make music more accessible to people of all income levels, b instrumental covers all costs.
FWCS Foundation board member Dan Ross is impressed with the thoughtful planning that went into the program.
“Dr. Wendy Robinson, CFO Kathy Friend, and others spent a long time, planning the details,” Ross says. “Their motivation to make this multi-million dollar investment was to increase attendance and improve student success. They saw how music programs could be instrumental (no pun intended) in doing this. And they’ve already seen improvement.”
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The orchestra class at Lane Middle School, conducted by Miss P, Colleen Phillips.
District-wide, the rate of “chronically absent” students is 12.4 percent; for students who have participated in b instrumental, that figure drops to 6.6 percent. And it has longevity.
The program aims to put an instrument in the hands of each middle school student—an instrument he or she will keep throughout high school band or orchestra.
So far, five middle schools are involved in the program, and the remaining six are scheduled to be included in the coming years.
‘A new language for your brain’
The way b instrumental works is middle school students get to try out instruments early in 6th grade, and they may receive their instrument later that year.
So how do they choose what to play? Just ask the students.
Daniel, who plays trombone, says he thought it looked cool.
Bailey, who plays flute, says she watched videos to help her pick.
And Jermaine, who plays clarinet, says Squidward, a character from the TV show “SpongeBob SquarePants,” plays it.
While many students say their parents are supportive of them playing an instrument, they often have to practice in their bedrooms or other closed spaces within the house to minimize noise.
“It’s like a new language for your brain,” says a student named Eli.
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Seventh grade b instrumental students from left, Eli, Merisa, and Zaw.
Each student carefully handles and proudly shows off his or her instrument at Phillips’s practice session.
When asked what message they’d have for the students in the middle schools who have yet to participate in the b instrumental program, Amarrion Moore, an earnest young string bass player was quick to offer his advice:
“Tell them to get involved. But tell them they can’t expect to play beautiful music the first time they lay hands on an instrument,” Moore says. “They have to learn to pluck before they bow.”
And while the b instrumental program has been highly successful so far among students and teachers, making the program a reality in the first place was no small feat.
Coordinating a fleet
For years, the oversight of the band and orchestra instruments had been decentralized in FWCS.
When the district decided to hire program manager, Bruce Schneider, (a FWCS graduate, percussionist, and associate band instructor) in 2016, he immediately started gathering data.
Schneider says he attached barcodes to every instrument, and the process was like coordinating a fleet of vehicles.
He inventoried the age of each instrument, planned the maintenance schedules and budgets, and developed a tracking system to know where each instrument was and to whom it was assigned.
Today, Schneider knows the whereabouts and condition of exactly 4,336 instruments in the hands of middle and high schoolers, as well as the 371 new instruments donated or purchased for the new b instrumental program.
He also discovered 1,859 of the instruments are at least thirty years old, and 37 are more than 60 years old.
Schneider says tracking the lifespans and adhering to a reasonable maintenance schedule should help reduce the district’s maintenance costs.
Regardless of the cost, those who have benefitted from the gift of music believe it is well worth the price.
A healthy outlet
As a professional musician who plays the trumpet, Ross treasures his involvement in music programs as a student.
“The discipline and skills you learn as a musician benefit you in every class and pursuit,” Ross says. “It prepares students for success in life, working as a team, seeing how your personal part makes an impact on your future.”
Fellow Foundation board member and a music producer himself, Iric Headley says the b instrumental program is also important because of its focus on removing roadblocks so students can be connected to instruments when they need them most.
“Music has been therapeutic, a healthy outlet, and an avenue to stimulate creativity that leads to confidence,” Headley says. “I had a rough time when my parents divorced, but jazz band kept me engaged, built confidence, and opened the door for me to enter the world of music creation and production. This program is our vehicle to reach kids now, who are going through what music helped me get through.”
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Amarion Moore is a 7th grade bass player in b instrumental at Lane Middle School.
A product of FWCS music education herself, Phillips sees the far-reaching benefits for her students, too. Music education spans the gaps in learning styles that traditional education often struggles to fill.
“Music brings together students from so many walks of life. I love the fact that there are so many kids that excel at music because they’re high achievers and that music is something that actually gives them a challenge,” she says. “And then sitting right next to those students are students that struggle to pass any other classes and struggle with the more ‘core class’ style. But they come to music, and finally, they have a subject that just makes sense to them.“