Pedersens make a move in BASD music department
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
Burlington Area School District band teacher Ron Pedersen knows he will be fighting the clock this summer.
So as soon as he returns from a brief vacation June 18, he’s planning on spending about 12 hours a week in the high school band department.
“There is going to be a lot of stuff that needs to be repaired,” Pedersen said. “It’s the organization stuff that is going to be pretty daunting.”
Pedersen will essentially take over the high school band program in the fall, replacing Ben Johnson, whose contract was reduced to .4 of a full-time equivalent in the recent BASD staffing changes.
Pedersen said Johnson will likely be taking over a portion of Dyer’s band program, and also teaching guitar at the high school.
It is part of a larger shift within the band program. Pedersen will now split his time between the high school and Karcher Middle School, while his wife, Sue, will take over a portion of the middle school band program while also still teaching at Dyer Intermediate School.
“I’m looking forward to re-establishing the relationship with the kids and the faculty,” Ron Pedersen said about making the switch.
Right now, Sue Pedersen estimates there are about 140 students in the Dyer band program, and Ron said about 125-130 are enrolled in band at the middle-school level.
The big drop comes at the high school level, where just about 70 students are signed up, according to Ron.
Taking a look at the schedule switches:
• Ron Pedersen will teach first and second hours at BHS, then have an advisory period. He will then go back to Karcher and teach fourth through sixth hours for eighth-grade band and lessons.
Two days a week he will head back to the high school for sectionals and jazz band, and will have that same schedule at Karcher once a week. The other two days will involve some time with the Professional Learning Community (PLC) and teaching the Dyer jazz band.
• Sue Pedersen will start at Karcher each day and teach seventh-grade band and an advisory period. She will also have two 40-minute periods of seventh-grade lessons.
Then she will travel to Dyer, where she will have about 140 students worth of music lessons. She will also teach fifth- and sixth-grade band.
Ron Pedersen said he had big goals for the high school band program, including creating a conventional pep band that would interact with the dance team and cheerleading squads.
Right now, though, it’s a matter of getting everything organized and ready to go – most likely before the start of the school year.
“Football season starts before school even starts,” Pedersen said.
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Sad to see what the band programs have degenerated to from the days when I was in high school 1982-1986. Very sad indeed.
Noel – Completely agreed. I wouldn’t have had half the successes I had if it weren’t for the music programs in the BASD. While I am fully confident the Pedersens’ will keep the programs floating, it is sad to think of the students that won’t have the same opportunities we once had.
Is this one of the ‘tools’ that school district now have? Cut staff from a program with over 300+ students and then overwork the remaining teachers. The school district that I attended when I was growing up had about the same number of students that BASD has. My graduating class was just under 300, similar to BHS. My middle school had 2 band teachers and my high school had 2 band teachers as well. This allowed for individual lessons that provided quality feedback to students trying to learn their musical instruments. How much quality time can these teachers really give to the large number of students in this obviously successful program? It is shameful that we can not afford to have at LEAST one band teacher at each school. Forcing them to travel each day is terrible. In the end, (not due to lack of effort or quality of the instructors) the teachers will get burnt out and the program will suffer.
BASD residents, enjoy the pennies you saved on your state taxes … is it worth it?