Proposed budget strikes sour note

concerts, I always sat there very proud of the programs we had here at Mars. Now I am questioning that,” she said.

District officials have always said that the band boosters were organized, easy to work with and supportive, Ms. O’Donnell said. “One thing we cannot do is take this decision quietly. I ask you, over the next week, that you sit down with the administrators and you look at those numbers again.”

Lisa Kumpfmiller said the small group lessons teach students who play the same instrument how to play together. “It makes us competitive,” she said, adding that Mars Area won the PMEA AAA championship against “districts that put lots of money into their music program, and we beat them.”

Ninth-grader Libby Roda said “it will just break my heart” if the music program is cut. “I want to make it really clear to you right now that the music program has helped me more than any teacher has or will,” she said.

“I stand before you as a living and breathing example of how the music program literally saves lives,” said Mia Giglietti, adding that, before she discovered marching band, “I was so incredibly lost and did not know what I wanted to do. … When we won championships in October, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I never felt before. To watch other kids not be able to have that same experience is heartbreaking.”

Board member Christine Valenta noted that the district has seven music teachers. Although she is passionate about music, it is more important to add a reading specialist for general education students who are not reading at grade level, she said.

“We need to consider the needs of all 3,400 students in the district,” she said. “There are needs and there are wants. There is a need to make sure that these students are reading at the level they are participating in. They need to be reading at grade level.”