Music educators adapt to new safety rules

GREENWICH — The music rooms at Greenwich Country Day School look a little different this fall.

Percussionists have their own stick and mallet kits. Wind instrumentalists wear band masks, with small openings so they can play. Flute shields are fastened near the mouthpiece to block players’ saliva from entering the air and bell-covers are placed over the horns of all wind and brass instruments. Beneath the water valves of wind instruments, on the floor at players’ feet, are “pee pads,” used in training puppies, to catch any discharge from students’ mouths.

But for all the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Debbie Kerrick, chair of performing and visual arts at the preK through 12 private school, is optimistic less than a week into the semester.

“I’m breathing a sigh of relief that we’re at day three and everything seems to be going well,” Kerrick said last week. “And just fact that we’ve been able to bring kids back in person, just to be together again, it’s been awesome, but stressful. These are challenging times.”

That is true for schools across the country as students, staff and administrators made an unprecedented return to class in recent days and weeks. Classes in all subject areas took hits, but specials such as music, in particular, pose difficult problems during a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on federal, state and municipal budgets.

“What we have noticed, across states, is that music education is having to deal with things and navigate the changes quite differently than other classes,” said Mackie V. Spradley, national president of the National Association for Music Education, or NAFME.

In the most dire cases, music and arts educators have been laid off, prompting USA Today to question whether the pandemic had ushered in a “Farewell to arts.”

Locally, the pandemic has not resulted in pink slips. But in many school districts, including Greenwich, as administrators are making difficult decisions on offerings, music educators have had to take a creative approach to teaching.

While Greenwich Country Day did not cut any programming, it invested heavily in instruments and technology. The school erected tents to serve as outdoor performing spaces, is using specialty “singer’s masks,” and purchased a dynamic V8 Filtration system, which Kerrick said was “incredibly expensive” — luxuries she acknowledges not all schools can afford.

“That’s one of the things that Country Day was able to do so well because we had the financial resources,” she said. “I really feel fortunate to be teaching here at a time like this because I know other schools aren’t able to provide what we provide.”

The risk, according to Spradley, with NAFME, is the exacerbation of an already wide musical achievement gap — a phenomenon that earlier this week, Yale School of Music faculty and administers said they were committed to addressing.

In less affluent communities, especially those that serve children of color, where there are fewer resources, music and arts education tends to suffer the most. Spradley said poorer districts have been more impacted, whether because of a lack of internet access in remote settings; an inability to purchase equipment; or not enough space for the necessary distancing. But those districts are not alone.

“I do expect that students that are already marginalized and not getting the best instruction, because of multiple reasons, that will become exponentially worse,” Spradley said. “But it’s many school districts, not just necessarily what we would consider poor school districts.”

In Westport, music education has mostly remained the same, though virtual lessons have been added to accommodate the district’s hybrid back-to-school model and limit the in-person burden on middle-school instruction, Board of Education Chair Candice Savin said.

Fairfield Public Schools will also use a combination of in-person and remote learning for music, and, according to the Darien Public Schools’ reopening plan, outdoor spaces will be used when possible. Spacing and mask-wearing will be enforced in chorus, band and orchestra classes.

Addendum 7, a section of the state Department of Education’s reopening guidelines concerned specifically with music and art education, lays out a series of a requirements. Among them, are recommendations for distancing between non-wind and wind instrumentalists, limits on indoor rehearsals to allow for proper air filtration, and suggested nylon or cloth bell coverings, like those used at Greenwich Country Day.

In a pandemic, the regulations are undoubtedly important. But they’re not cost-neutral and many require additional space that may not be available in public schools.

And while educators are struggling to catch up with the changes, Spradley, with NAFME, has a philosophical complaint about arts education on the chopping block: It’s every bit as important as other subjects, including math, English or science, she said, that are not at risk.

“I think it’s almost criminal for a student to lose the experience of learning that occurs in music education because of the pandemic,” Spradley said.