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We're keeping instrumental music alive in our Redwood City Schools!
WITHOUT YOUR HELP, OUR SCHOOLS WILL
FALL SILENT
With your help we were able to raise enough money to help keep the Instrumental Music program alive for our middle school students this year. Now we must act once again to raise close to $95,000 to save this critical program so that next year's middle school students don't lose all the academic, cognitive, and social development benefits that come with learning to play an instrument in a group.
Find out how you can Join the Chorus to help save middle school Instrumental Music!
Please send us an email if you can help or make your gift today!
Redwood city whole foods 5% day may 23, 2012
Stock up for summer on May 23, 2012 at Redwood City Whole Foods Market, and 5% of proceeds all day go to benefit the Save Our School Music campaign.
"Join the chorus" campaign kickS off 3/18/12
Education budget cuts never stop, and neither does Save Our School Music. March marks the kick off of the 2012 Join The Chorus Campaign to raise a minimum of $95,000 to keep music for our middle school students.
You can help!
VOLUNTEER Help with the 4th of July Parade Run. Or send us an email to join the steering committee or help on other initiatives.
DONATE
We are seeking twenty $1,000 donors, who will be thanked with a private recital and their names in the spring concert programs. Can you be one of those 20 people? Do you know someone who could be? Let us know!
And as always, donations of any amount are greatly appreciated. Or respond to our appeal letter - coming soon.
We are also partnering with the City of Redwood City again to present 4th of July Parade Run, which last year brought in more than $20,000 for music. More news on the campaign will come soon!
Please contact us if you can help!
$10,000 MATCHING GRANT SUCCESS! 9/20/11
Thanks largely to the efforts of SOSM volunteer Georgia Jack, we were able to match a $10,000 challenge grant made by an anonymous donor to help our music students. The September 5% Day at Whole Foods Market generated more than $5,000 toward this goal.
Middle school instrumental music education begins in 6th grade. Entering students have benefited from four years of general music education provided through the RCEF Music for Learning program. This program provides trained music educators to teach music fundamentals in the grades 2 and 3, and recorder and site reading in 4th and 5th grades. The RCEF fully funds Music for Learning with the support of local businesses, organizations, and school families. Learn more about RCEF Music for Learning
Music Teacher Saved! 8/1/11
Thanks to another outpouring of support from school families and our community, the RCEF was able to again provide funding for one of the District's three music teachers. To keep this program viable, three teachers are needed, and we are happy and relieved that we could step up to save the program.
The 2011 Save Our School Music campaign generated $75,000 of this funding, and the RCEF contributed the remaining amount from our reserves. This means in 2012, we will need to raise the full amount through our campaign, as the reserves may not be enough to carry us through.
RCEF raises $4,000 at Districtwide Music Festival 5/16/11
Parents and family enjoyed a evening of jazz, band, and orchestra numbers May 16, 2011, thanks to our district's brilliant and talented music students and their equally phenomenal teachers. In addition to giving up their applause, audience members gave generously to our Save Our School Music campaign, raising $4,000 in all. We thank our students, teachers, and parents for helping keep music alive for our kids!
Rescue Music 911 Campaign 5/11/11
All three music teaching positions have been eliminated from Redwood City School District’s 2011-12 school year. The reluctant vote by the Board of Trustees on Wednesday night, May 11, effectively silences instrumental music for nearly 800 students in grades 6 through 8. Most keenly affected are the district’s low-income students, estimated at about 75 percent of program participants, for whom music is often the one bright spot in their day as well as an enhancer of academic, cognitive, and social development skills. Read our press release
Music Alive and Well in Schools Thanks to Community-Based Effort — The Spectrum, November 2010
RCEF Parade Entry Wins Prize! 7/4/10
The first ever Save Our School Music Marching Kazoo Band rocked the 2010 4th of July Parade route with stirring renditions of the Rocky theme and Yankee Doodle. The band took 2nd prize in the category Miscellaneous Novelty Youth Group. The band also carried a banner to let the thousands in the audience know about the RCEF and our music campaign.
See more news from 2010 Spring SOSM Campaign!
"Music puts a smile on my face. I have a lot of friends I’ve met because of band. My grades have gone up. I’m on the honor roll now. Music makes me feel smart."
Kennedy Middle School Student
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician ... I get most joy in life out of music." Albert Einstein
"We learn to work together as a group. We have to learn to balance tones and play in tune and play notes at the right time so we don’t mess everyone up. It takes a lot of skill." Kennedy Middle School Student
"Students in high-quality school music programs score higher on standardized tests compared to students in schools with deficient music education programs, regardless of the socioeconomic level of the school or school district." Nina Kraus Professor of Neurobiology, Northwestern University
"Without the people that come from Redwood City our band would be much smaller and we may not have enough students to have a band at our high school." Sequoia High School Music Student
Fast Facts about RCSD Instrumental Music Program
Fast Facts About Music Benefits for Students
For many of our children, the instrumental music program is literally their only opportunity to learn how to play an instrument. Without this program few of them will be able to continue on to study music in the upper grades, which will see the inevitable decimation of high school bands and other youth music opportunities in our community.
Countless studies have documented the benefit of music instruction when it comes to improving academic and social skills. Beyond mere achievement however lies the reality that music is one of our most fundamental forms of human self expression. Every culture in the world has music at its center, and it is an artform that crosses social, economic, and linguistic borders. An education that deprives children of the skills to use and appreciate this most basic form of creative expression is an education that fails.
Please help us give our children the education they need to succeed -- join our campaign to save the music in Redwood City. Become a volunteer, spread the word, or make your contribution today!
RCEF Publications
"Keep our students playing!" Flyer
"Imagine a world without music" Flyer
Fast Facts about Instrumental Music Instruction in RCSD
Fast Facts About Music and Students
Facts About the History of Instrumental Music in RCSD
Other Publications
Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement
"Why Music and Arts Education" Community School of Music and Arts
OTHER RESOURCES
California Alliance for Arts Education
Children’s Music Workshop presents Music Education Online
Community School of Music and Arts
National Association for Music Education<