The Master Schedule: A Working Solution for Musicians
Cheryl Lines

I am truly most humbled to greet you as your General Music Vice-President for the 2008-2010 executive term. I cannot begin to fill the shoes of the outstanding professionals who served before me, nor will I even attempt to try. I will, however, offer as much down-to-earth guidance and direction as my years in the classroom have allowed and will enlist the unlimited resources of you, my colleagues and friends, to bring you the most knowledgeable and useful information available promoting a bright future for music education state-wide.

This is the time of year in classrooms when our musical agenda takes us from bell to bell and then some! Spring concert and musical work is in full swing. Music festival preparation and honor choir rehearsals fill our early mornings and our late afternoons. Auditions for summer opportunities and performance ensembles for next year take priority too. But along with all those acts to juggle, we must also pull everything off around state mandated assessments.

Let’s face it. District performance on state mandated assessment drives absolutely every aspect of the school day, including music. Furthermore, if you, as a music educator, can only squeeze in time for one committee, then the scheduling committee in your building or district may well be the most important, though grueling, work that you’ll ever do to protect, promote, and benefit your current and future students’ well-rounded and comprehensive music education.

Master schedules can vary greatly from district to district, building to building, and grade level to grade level. In 20+ years of teaching, I’ve experienced 6-hour days, 7-hour days, 8-hour days, block schedules, modified block schedules, self-contained classrooms, exploratory wheels, A/B days, team teaching, departmentalized classes, class within a class, and as you well know, the list goes on and on and on. So where does music fit into this snaggle of schedules? In short, in every nook and cranny that’s left.

In this day of No Child Left Behind with No Time To Waste, I would like to advocate to each of you a few ideas that have worked for me and many of my colleagues in keeping top-notched music programs safe, sound, and productive regardless of trends and changes in education that inevitably come and go.

1. Be Involved! Don’t wait for the schedule to change and be left to commit
to its perameters for the good or bad. Offer your expertise right off the bat
at the ground level of development so that you have ownership in the
master plan.
2. Be an Advocate NOT a Defendant. Always promote your programs.
Don’t defend them. Defense is needed for those who feel their programs
are being attacked. Advocacy enlightens persons outside our specialty
area of music’s value and worth.
3. Do Your Research! Know your school’s master schedule and your
your school’s needs. Don’t exist only within your music room walls.
4. Don’t Settle for Minimum Standards. Be aware that the wording in
state requirements may not be in your favor. Strive not just for meeting
goals but for surpassing them with flying colors.
5. Keep Student Success as Your Vision. Always advocate for the children
you reach, not for your own personal schedule or agenda.
6. Be Flexible! Be ready to look at schedules from many different
perspectives. Many drafts and revisions may be necessary before final
decisions are reached in which all can benefit.
7. Maintain Professionalism. Don’t let your passion for your program turn
into an emotional fiasco. Keep your ideas competitive, marketable, and good for the whole.
8. Promote Year-Round Instruction. Twenty minutes a day or 40 minutes
every other day is far more beneficial to learning than chunking time into an hour a week or six weeks a year. Cramming for a test might get you through the exam, but daily, sequential instruction will expand that learning far beyond the classroom door and onto life-long productive
activities for all citizens.
9. Collaborate with Art, Physical Education, and other Music Teachers. Work directly with those who have the same needs and visions as yourself. Individually, you offer merely one modest opinion. Together, there is unity, strength, and effective practice.
10. Remain Positive! Assuming the glass is half full rather than half empty
will always open doors when it seems that all is not in your favor. Many of the world’s greatest achievements have come out of most dire circumstances.

These suggestions, of course, are simply a starting point to help you with your many individual scheduling needs. It would be great if there were some magic formula to apply to all situations regardless of grade level, class size, staff availability, or funding, but to our credit, each Missouri school is unique. What works well in one scenario, may be a nightmare in another. Be cautious about promoting or retrofitting a successful schedule from another district which may appear good, but could offer drawbacks for your program. Every best intended plan will still offer many pros and cons for your students and each glitch along the way must be scrutinized with great care. Every unique situation, must also have a unique and workable solution. A cookie-cutter solution will rarely be successful, yet a personalized, thoughtfully designed plan can surely be a winner.

It is also recommended that music teachers at all grade levels have awareness to know that your programs should never assume immunity to scheduling crises. High school performance classes are constantly “on alert” to new state graduation requirements, dual-credit, college credit, and embedded credit legislation that directly effects the number of students that are able to stay in music courses through all four years of a program. Yet those students who have that opportunity, consistently have better attendance records, graduate with higher class rank, achieve higher test scores, are more likely to continue with post-secondary education, and are awarded more dollars in scholarships.

Middle schools and junior highs need to protect year-round instruction that does not force students to choose one fine arts class over another. This can most likely be done in two ways. The first is to make sure your building offers at least seven class periods in every day, preferably eight, with ten being optimal for block scheduling. Second, keep your general music classes aligned and balanced to the physical education that is offered each day and out of the exploratory wheel or elective cycle. The ground- work that a general music class can pave for all music performance classes will fuel and enhance your total programs many-fold.

Finally, always remember that the best music education programs start with the very young. Nurture and maintain daily or every other day music instruction at the early childhood and elementary levels. Although this time has traditionally been reasonably safe in the era of scheduling changes, stricter mandates in math and reading have caused lost or “chunked” time in the fine arts. A 30-minute private lesson per week with daily parental support is a good supplement to a general music program, but transplanting that concept to an entire class, class and a half, or even double classes for general music instruction is less than adequate. Frequent sessions with manageable class size are a must for success with beginners.

Excellence in music education is much more likely with frequent, year-round, sequential, and comprehensive instruction. Envision it, plan it, advocate it, and make it happen in your world. It’s what is best for your program and also is best for the successful development of the whole child.