{"id":312587,"date":"2022-06-09T08:06:55","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T15:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/?p=312587"},"modified":"2022-06-07T14:13:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T21:13:13","slug":"due-to-salary-cuts-pacific-beach-middle-may-lose-music-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/due-to-salary-cuts-pacific-beach-middle-may-lose-music-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"Due to salary cuts, Pacific Beach Middle may lose music teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy 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,\u201d said John-Paul \u201cJP\u201d Balmat, MBHS music director and 2017 San Diego Unified District Teacher of the Year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say, with 100% certainty, that our (cluster\u2019s) 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reduced salary position is for PBMS music teacher John O\u2019Donnell, a 39-year music instruction veteran, who has taught sixth-through-eighth graders in band and orchestra at PBMS for 13 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a plethora of information on the subject of the effects of music education on students,\u201d noted O\u2019Donnell. \u201cThese 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
PBMS music teacher John O\u2019Donnell takes a selfie with his students in Pacific Beach. COURTESY PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Added O\u2019Donnell: \u201cThere 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balmat attributed the music education funding cut, in part, to a \u201cdecrease 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to declining enrollment, Balmat said the school district opted to cut costs by combining a couple of O\u2019Donnell\u2019s 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\u2019Donnell\u2019s music instructor position.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re 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\u2019t done anything wrong,\u201d said Balmat pointing out O\u2019Donnell \u201ccommutes from Temecula.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balmat characterized losing even one music instructor in the Mission Bay Cluster as \u201ca 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,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. \u201cBy doing this, [San Diego Unified School District] is losing an amazing educator, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":312588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"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.","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"3","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"1","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11564,11550],"tags":[13341,13068,13339,13340,12639],"class_list":["post-312587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-education","category-top-stories","tag-mission-bay-cluster","tag-mission-bay-high","tag-music-teacher","tag-pacific-beach-middle","tag-san-diego-unified-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}