By MIAWLING
LAM
Officials
at P.S. 24 continue to defend their controversial decision to downsize the
school’s cherished music program.
Despite
widespread outcry from local parents, elected officials and community members,
P.S. 24 interim acting assistant principal Emanuele ‘Manny’ Verdi last week
said he stood by a move to excess the school’s vocal music teacher.
Verdi
acknowledged that music education was important, but said retaining classroom
instructors and reducing class sizes were higher priorities.
“I stand by
my guns,” he said, while addressing the matter at last week’s School Leadership
Team meeting.
“From our
standpoint, these are the cards we were dealt. We had five days to react to it
and this is what we did.
“We were
told the budget was the same…but when the budget came in, it wasn’t the same.
It just wasn’t. So we had to hustle.”
As a
result, school administrators said they were forced to excess the entire music
department—one instrumental teacher and one vocal teacher—just days before the
end of the last school year.
At the
time, Verdi said officials were forced to let go of the teachers because three
staffers—with seniority—were returning from leave.
However,
after the community bandied together and protested the cuts, administrators
last month confirmed that instrumental teacher, Maryellen Shepley, would be
rehired.
Controversially
though, the vocal teacher still remains excessed.
Despite the
downsizing, P.S. 24 principal Donna Connelly
reiterated her commitment to arts instruction and pointed to her
introduction of a theater program as evidence of this.
“We were
the ones that expanded the (music) program. When we came into the school, we
made it bigger. We didn’t make it smaller. Everybody forgets that,” she said.
The
comments come a week after around a dozen parents bemoaned the devastating cuts
and called on the school to restore both positions.
In a series
of random interviews conducted on the first day of the new school year, many
parents and grandparents warned that the loss of a vocal teacher could
negatively impact academic achievement and rob children of a well-rounded
education.
Under the
partial restoration, the school will be eligible to continue participating in
the Music and the Brain program and the VH1 Save The
Music Foundation.
The
MATB program supplies students from Grades K-2 with dozens of keyboards, while
VH1 supplies pupils in Grades 3-5 with a range of woodwind instruments.
Existing
partnerships with the New York Philharmonic and Little Orchestra Society will
also continue to supplement the school’s musical instruction.
