Amador County – Amador Community Foundation announced last week the anonymous gift of $30,000 toward music education in county schools.

Amador Community Foundation Executive Director Tina Hurley, who is disbursing the donation, said the gift is for music education. She said “Chris Tootle, Amador County Unified School District Music Educator, had partial funding for music education from other resources, but this gift allowed him to hire additional teachers and fund the music program through the next year.”

Hurley said now the High School Jazz Band can be offered this year as well as 5th & 6th grade elementary band classes. All three are “programs which were previously cut, with the loss of two full-time music teacher positions.” She said “generous gifts from other private donors at the Amador Community Foundation, Sutter Creek Elementary, and Pioneer Elementary, allowed many of these classes to return.”

Elementary Band classes are the feeder system for the Junior High and High School Bands, and the High School Jazz Band keeps the most advanced students challenged, so getting these classes back was first on the ACUSD Music Education department’s priority list, Hurley said.

“With these sizeable financial donations, we created a budget that makes it possible to teach students Band in 6th Grade, as well as Jazz Band, twice a week,” said Tootle. “We are going to try and stretch the budget through the 2011-2012 school year as well as this Spring, but once the funds run out, it is back to square one.”

In the past 20 years, ACSUD staff has gone from five full-time music teachers to one, as a result of state budget cuts, Hurley said, while many school districts across the state have cut Arts Education entirely.

Amador County schools that have added Elementary Band twice a week this spring are Pioneer, Sutter Creek, Pine Grove, and Ione Junior High. Plymouth Elementary, Jackson Elementary, and Jackson Junior High will teach Band in the 2011 school year.

Pioneer also offers K-2 General Music, 3-4 Recorder, and 5-6 Band/Violin. Thanks to the efforts of their Parent Faculty Club, Ione Elementary School offers General Music classes to each student once a week. Ione Elementary School also holds beginner, intermediate and advanced violin. The High School Jazz Band also rehearses twice a week.

The $30,000 donation was part of a total $130,000 anonymous donation to ACUSD, with disbursement made by the Amador Community Foundation. About $50,000 of the funding went to each of the Physical Education programs at the two Junior High Schools, in Ione and Jackson.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.