{"id":12499,"date":"2012-11-15T11:14:24","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T16:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12499"},"modified":"2012-11-15T21:58:17","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T02:58:17","slug":"marching-band-requirement-poised-for-elimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12499","title":{"rendered":"Marching band requirement poised for elimination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unionville school board likely to adopt change making band a voluntary extra-curricular activity<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of Education is expected to approve a change Monday night that would no longer make participation in marching band part of the school’s academic music program.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 For music students at Unionville High School, marching band will likely no longer be a mandatory ritual of summer and fall, if as expected, the Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of Education moves Monday to change the activity from co-curricular to extra-curricular.<\/p>\n

Although students previously were given exemptions from participating in marching band if they were involved in athletics, had after-school jobs or other issues, those exemptions were done on a case-by-case basis by band director Scott Litzenberg. The revision to the policy would allow students and parents to decide for themselves whether they wish to participate.<\/p>\n

After a fairly lengthy investigation and survey of parents, students, staff and others in the community, the district\u2019s administration is recommending the change, which is expected to be formally approved at Monday night\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

According to Kenneth Batchelor, Assistant to the Superintendent, the survey found support for the change \u2014 even from students who were enthusiastic about marching band. Batchelor noted that some of those students thought allowing their fellow students\u00a0 who did not want to be part of the band would improve morale and make it more fun for those who chose to participate.<\/p>\n

In addition to allowing music students to not participate \u2014 something district officials say may encourage students to now study music who might have been worried about the time commitment to be in marching band \u2014 the decoupling would also make it easier for non-music students to join the band.<\/p>\n

Litzenberg did note that is was likely that the change would result in a smaller total number of participants in marching band in the coming years.<\/p>\n

The board is also expected to approve a number of new courses and an adjustment to others Monday night, including a new guitar class at levels I & II, and a merger of the introduction to piano and All About Music. The Tech Education department will also be offering Engineering I & II as well, starting in the next school year.<\/p>\n

In other schools\u2019 news, there was some spirited debate about the impact of new policies regarding advertising in school publications, such as programs for sporting events and various performances.<\/p>\n

The new policy limits advertisements from seven categories, including religious groups, political organizations and candidates, those involved with gambling, alcohol sales, gun sales, and adult activity.<\/p>\n

The new policy stopped long-time supporters of the school district from buying ads in various publications, including St. Michael\u2019s Lutheran Church and Willowdale Chapel, which sought to buy \u201cBest Wishes\u201d sorts of ads in school programs.<\/p>\n

Board member and Policy Committee chair Kathleen Do brought up the issue and asked her colleagues whether the time has come to reconsider the new policy, potentially to make it less restrictive.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is we might consider a revision to the policy,\u201d Do said.<\/p>\n

But there wasn\u2019t clear agreement \u2014 seemingly, there was a 4-4 split (board member Frank Murphy did not attend Monday night\u2019s board work session), leaving the will of the board somewhat unclear to the administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make sure that the administration has interpreted the police in lines with the wishes of the board,\u201d Superintendent of Schools John Sanville said.<\/p>\n

While some members suggested a loosening of the standard to allow some ads, others worried that it could open the district to litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m comfortable with it as it is,\u201d board member Keith Knauss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have closed the door to a lot of community partners,\u201d Do said, noting that even the YMCA would not be able to advertise under a strict interpretation, as the \u201cC\u201d stands for Christian.<\/p>\n

There was no resolution of the issue Monday, and it is likely there will be more discussion next Monday night.<\/p>\n

Finally, in one other news item, the Unionville Sports Council announced it would be donating $35,000 to the school district \u2014 the approximate cost of the new entryway for the football stadium. Administrators also moved to quell some reports in the community that the new entrance might cost as much as $125,000 \u2014 noting that a very early concept some years back might have called for a more extensive and expensive project \u2014 but that the project approved by the Board of Education last month is a more modest project and it will make the $35,000 budget. Sanville said about half the cost would be for a new concrete pad, with the rest for a new ticket booth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unionville school board likely to adopt change making band a voluntary extra-curricular activity By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 For music students at Unionville High School, marching band will likely no longer be a mandatory ritual of summer and fall, if as expected, the Unionville-Chadds Ford Board of Education moves Monday to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[2218,485,386,7427,2219],"class_list":["post-12499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-advertising-policy","tag-board-of-education","tag-marching-band","tag-unionville-high-school","tag-unionville-sports-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}