'It's been a real challenge': Helena music teachers tell board budget cuts hurt programs, students

Helena Public Schools music teachers updated the board on conditions after budget cuts were made in June and cited lack of skills, continuity issues and memory problems.

In the last two full board meetings on Dec. 10 and Jan. 14, four music teachers have offered public comment to the trustees, all talking about similar issues of a failing budget decision.

"It's been a real challenge. We are struggling to build momentum in classrooms," Sarah Dramstad, a music teacher at Four Georgians and Jefferson elementary schools, said at the Dec. 10 board meeting.

The budget cuts in June came after levies and ballot proposals failed in May, when the board used a priority list recommended by the budget consensus committee.

The list consisted of multiple items including closing a school, cutting cellphone stipends, reducing the number of librarians and reducing instructional coaches.

Three full-time music positions and three full-time physical education positions were cut in elementary schools.

"When we went out for the safety and security (levy), I was tasked by our board to keep our programs," Superintendent Rex Weltz said. "So the ask last year was to keep our programs because what we do in Helena is fantastic and we don't want to change that." 

"With the fail of the levy, then came the consequences for us and we had to make choices," he added.

Dramstad said teachers settled on a model involving three classes over two weeks, but some of the classes are split so they do not see the same music teacher all three days.

Nine out of 11 classrooms at Jefferson Elementary School have split music instruction, which was happening at multiple schools across the district and does not allow teachers to collaborate due to time constraints.

Dramstad said she saw her second- through fifth-grade students at Jefferson two days in November and did not see them until 27 days later. After that she waited another 27 days to see them again.

Weltz said what was heard during public comment from music teachers was that they liked the old model of teaching and wanted to go back to that, and the district agreed.

Unfortunately the cuts do not allow that.

"When budgets are limited and organizations have to make decisions to lessen the amount of people they have in an organization, it's hard on everybody. At the end of the day it's hard on kids," he added.

Students' memories of their teachers are fading along with teachers,' educators said.

Kaitlin Albus, a Bryant, Smith and Rossiter elementary schools music teacher, said in her public comment that her students asked what her name was.

On the opposing side, Dramstad said she saw her student outside of school but could not remember their name.

Dramstad has roughly 710 students to manage and called it the "low end" as the range was between 700 and 900 students per teacher.

"We have just had to accept that we will not know all our students' names ... It hurts to not be able to greet a student by name because if your teacher doesn't even remember your name, what kind of relationship can you have with them?" she said.

Board trustee Jennifer McKee said she did not blame the teachers for voicing their concerns because she doesn't want to forget how those cuts impacted them.

"No one wanted to make those cuts. They were an attempt to cut as little as possible," she said. "It did create this organizational nightmare that falls on the backs of of the teachers and it's unfair."

At the Jan. 14 board meeting, Jennifer Skogley, an elementary music teacher in her 16th year, told the board of issues that have surfaced.

In her first and kindergarten classes she uses a program called First Steps in Music, which is divided into two semesters with 12 lessons per semester.

Generally, she said they can get through all of the lessons, but this year the classes are three lessons behind where they normally are.

"For the older students, they are behind in their literacy," Skogely said. "I use a program called Conversational Solfege to teach students how to read basic rhythmic notation and each unit consists of 12 steps." 

Fourth and fifth grade are two steps behind, she added.

"Routines and behaviors, I have noticed this year are also falling behind in how quickly kids can establish those routines," the veteran music teacher said.

Some of the routines she mentioned during her public comment were how to properly take out instruments and put them back and how to find partners for folk dancing.

Skogely said she saw her fourth and fifth graders Jan. 6, 7 and 13, but will not see them again until Feb. 4, leaving nearly three weeks of instructional time in between.

Due to the gap, her section is missing 50% of its instruction time. Christopher Nevinski, a band teacher at C.R. Anderson Middle School, followed Skogely in the public comment portion of the meeting and highlighted her mention of the lack of behavioral and routine skills.

"My concern is that now the fifth graders are coming in next year as sixth graders are starting to lack some of that background," he said. "We're not quite sure how that's going to be because when they come in we expect those kids" to have their rhythms and note identifications.

Kevin Cleary, orchestra director at Capital and Helena high schools, said he was also concerned with the lack of skills.

Dramstad said the music teachers are "working really hard this year to deliver quality education to our students."

"We have never worked harder and we've never been more tired," she said. "There is joyful music making in our classrooms when we are lucky enough to be there with our students."