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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DD goes to WHS and is a musician affected by this decision. She is in the most advanced ensemble for her instrument, and it’s an honors course, so she gets a 0.5 GPA bump. This is not unique to WHS; there are 25 or so high schools that offer honors band/orchestra, etc.

Everyone in the honors ensemble meets for 1.5 hours, once a week, outside of school hours. In this case, it’s a symphonic orchestra that otherwise does not meet during school hours (the kids take the most advanced orchestra and band separately during school hours and come together to form a full symphony during the after school hours). There is at least one other HS that does it in a similar manner (meets regularly after school, but not once a week) that I know of, because DD has friends that are in those ensembles. As far as I know, this is how things have been done for over a decade.

DD’s understanding is that the other arts departments complained that they don’t have similar offerings, leading to the cuts to level the playing field. She was told that this will result in honors ensembles being done away with entirely, and believes it will lead to further drop in participation. [/quote]

Honors classes should be meeting during school hours. Extra practice is a thing, and I get that, but it should be extra and not a regularly scheduled extra that impacts a grade in school. Do we tell the kids taking honors math that they need to participate in math club, or it will impact their grade?

I would hope that the kids who are invested enough in music would be willing to continue to participate in the additional programs because of the different competitions and activities that come from it, just like the kids participating in any club does. The Math competition kids are not getting credit for attending the club and participating in competitions, they do it because they enjoy it and they think it will benefit them in some way. Extra music programs should be the same. And the Teachers should be paid as a club advisor if they are meeting like a club does.

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I think the difference here is that honors math (for instance) has well defined extensions that can be done in class during class times. Honors Orchestra/Band (where the honors part is essentially playing symphonic works) cannot, as it brings together orchestra kids and band kids, and is separate from orchestra and band classes.

Unlike with math, there are no competitions or other activities that come with it, other than the yearly assessments that every school orchestra participates in, not just the honors one. Additionally, without the honors bump, participation in this brings down GPAs, disincentivizing kids from participating. Math and science has honors and APs, but this would not. Kids who would like to maintain high GPAs would probably end up taking AP Music Theory, or other APs instead of continuing to participate. They can (and usually do) participate in youth orchestras, so there is no unmet need here. [/quote]

As someone who participated in music and has friends whose kids are participating in music, there are competitions and the like that the kids could be participating in. If the "extra practice" is 1.5 hours once a week then it can be treated like a club. The kids can choose to participate in a club that they benefit from, extra practice and instruction, and can probably find competitions or places that they could play above and beyond the school choir.

A kid who is interested in music should be interested in the club orchestra/band in the same way that a kid interested in math can choose to participate in the math clubs and math competitions.

I am not sure why there needs to be an honors band as an elective. Parents and students should understand that colleges unweight GPAs when they apply as it is so an A in orchestra/band is still an A.

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I was responding to the PP who said that the orchestras can participate in competitions, like the kids doing math competitions and such. There are no orchestra competitions in school. Of course, kids can and do compete in music competitions, but those are on an individual basis, not on a 'team' basis. But that's neither here nor there; there isn't really a need for competitions.

A kid interested in orchestral music will benefit from participating in youth orchestras, and not so much school orchestras which are by and large, not nearly as good, and there is little to no instruction. Kids interested in being mathletes often don't really have an option to work as a team outside of their school, whereas music kids often do. IMO, if the schools want to retain their best kids in their music programs, it helps to incentivize them. [/quote]

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