To the Editor:

A Sound Off last week was aimed at the Potsdam Central School music department, and the latest cut in music faculty proposed in this year’s school budget (“Music Department Still Big,” Mar. 16 – 22). The writer states we “will continue to celebrate our championship programs as much as we wish”.  The writer appears to be trying to say quality education is a simple case of mind over matter.

We do not need to worry about having enough teachers to deliver the necessary material to our students. The teachers who are left will be able to do it all! They can wave their magic batons, and, poof, all will be well.

This is absurd. The music department will, beyond doubt, suffer dramatically if the middle school band position is eliminated, as it already has with the elimination of the elementary instrumental position last year. If the middle school band position is cut, there will be one professional delivering band instruction to students in both the middle and high schools.

Somehow, a 300-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio doesn’t really sound like “the lowest student to teacher ratio in the area.” Instrumental lessons will need to be given to large classes of students, rather than the current smaller groupings, with little or no small group or one-to-one instruction possible.

After the elimination of the elementary instrumental program last year, one professional delivers all string instruction for grades 4 to 12. The budget proposal suggests that high school vocal lessons could be eliminated, thus freeing up another teacher to help close the gaping hole in the middle and elementary schools. Really? Eliminate vocal lessons?

Then we have also eliminated participation in NYSSMA Solo Festivals, Area All-State Choral Festivals, and Conference All-State choruses, honors performing groups which typically do not accept students who have not studied voice in some capacity. Would anyone be named as a conference athlete without having first learned to play the game from a professional who knew how to do it? Of course not.

If we are truly educators who strive for excellence in teaching and, as a result, want our students to strive for their highest level of achievement, then take the proposed cut to the music program completely off the table. A 29 percent cut in two years is excessive in anyone’s book.

The sentence in the Sound Off that said “The program will still be as strong as the remaining department wants it to be” is an incredible slap in the face to the hard-working music teachers at Potsdam Central. The writer seems to suggest that if the music program suffers due to faculty cuts, it will be because the remaining teachers somehow want it to suffer to make a point.

Obviously the writer doesn’t really know these professionals. They will continue to work as hard as they can to provide quality curricular education to our students, but negative changes will occur to the program, and that is simple physics, not choice.

 And now I will close, choosing to sign my name so there is no confusion about who I am or why I am writing this letter.

Adrienne Hartman, Co-Chair, Potsdam Central School Music Friends