An urgent plea has gone out for students, staff, and Pacific Beach Middle and Mission Bay High alumni to help thwart a 20% decrease in the music position salary at PBMS, potentially impacting the quality of education throughout the Mission Bay Cluster.
“By doing this, [San Diego Unified School District] is losing an amazing educator, getting rid of music classes, and jeopardizing the future of music in our community,” said John-Paul “JP” Balmat, MBHS music director and 2017 San Diego Unified District Teacher of the Year.
“I can say, with 100% certainty, that our (cluster’s) success has, and will always be dependent, on our communitywide middle-school program. We need our community to act now. Consider writing an email to stakeholders encouraging them to offer a full-time position at the middle school.”
The reduced salary position is for PBMS music teacher John O’Donnell, a 39-year music instruction veteran, who has taught sixth-through-eighth graders in band and orchestra at PBMS for 13 years.
“There is a plethora of information on the subject of the effects of music education on students,” noted O’Donnell. “These include studies that associate participation in instrumental music ensembles with an increase in SAT scores. Despite the mountain of evidence that shows the positive impact music education has on students, it is always the first subject area to be scaled down.”
Added O’Donnell: “There is also the social side to the subject. Music class is often the only part of the day where a student feels successful or part of a group. A definite identity as a musician is developed and a strong bond is created within the music ensemble; a very important part of the adolescent landscape.
“Within our cluster, the contraction of one program, especially in the lower grade levels, necessarily has a negative impact on upper-level programs. Fewer students in the middle-school music program mean fewer students in the high-school program.”
Balmat attributed the music education funding cut, in part, to a “decrease in enrollment for the entire San Diego Unified School District, with a lot of students going to charter schools, or doing online schooling, moving out of the public-school environment.”
Due to declining enrollment, Balmat said the school district opted to cut costs by combining a couple of O’Donnell’s classes, shifting him to part-time, and cutting the salary offered for his position to 80% of what it was previously. He added an effort is being launched to find a way to fully fund O’Donnell’s music instructor position.
“We’re trying to reach out to the school board office and the school district administration to try and find solutions because a teacher of his caliber should never have to deal with a pay cut when he hasn’t done anything wrong,” said Balmat pointing out O’Donnell “commutes from Temecula.”
Balmat characterized losing even one music instructor in the Mission Bay Cluster as “a worst-case scenario. The big effect of this, as a cluster, is that we (MBHS) depend on the middle and elementary schools to get kids excited about music. If we lose any of the music students from our feeder schools, that really determines the program we can offer here at the high school,” he concluded.
