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Posted February 27, 2008
Music project in tune with kids
Let me introduce you to Dolores Gibbons and Jim Geiszler, both of whose
passion for educational challenge is unrivaled.
Last year when the then Northshore schools superintendent Dr.
Karen Forys’ health was failing, Dolores was coaxed out of retirement
to provide leadership on an interim basis. Upon Dr. Forys’ death in
September, the school board asked Dolores to guide the district through
the current academic year. She was just getting accustomed to retirement
life after a number of years as superintendent of the Renton School
District.
As students, staff, parents and the rest of us became acquainted
with Dolores Gibbons, we realized what a gem we had. I have dubbed her
our “super sub super”. (“Sub” as in substitute).
All she is being asked to do is find her permanent successor and
to take on the unenviable task finding areas in which to slash more than
$3 million from the next district operating budget. Neither assignment
is an easy one, but more on that later.
I became intrigued with the work of Jim Geiszler while attending
a Santa breakfast at Northshore Junior High School last December. Jim is
a math teacher at the Secondary Academy for Success (SAS), where 120
students, ages middle school through high school, attend their “school
of choice”. At the December breakfast, Jim displayed his passion for
jazz and the blues as he handled the electronic keyboard, accompanying a
number of student singers belting out holiday tunes while much younger
kids scrambled about picking out a toy, a warm coat and a chance to meet
Santa.
These singers from SAS were part of the “Music Project” that
Jim has brought to his school. Launching the Music Project has extended
his teaching career until retirement is not even up for discussion.
He’s been teaching 38 years and SAS has been his school.
If you receive your Reporter in your driveway on
Wednesdays, just yesterday was the culmination of the most recent
three-week-long Music Project. It was staged at the Anderson School
cafeteria (Jim calls it the Anderson Ballroom for this important
occasion). Student performers and their professional music mentors put
on a concert to showcase the immense personal and group progress in
talent, poise and self assurance among the many performers nurtured
through this unique extracurricular program.
Here’s Jim’s assessment: “By performing music that is not
only fun but has a positive message and is the result of hard work and
commitment, the increase in pride and self-esteem that results from
performing is clearly evident to teachers and parents. Just as important
is the respect these kids gain from their peers.”
The program involves bringing in professional musicians,
“faculty” well- respected in the field of rhythm and blues. They
come with a solid reputation. When
a musical artist by the name of Stevie Wonder was just getting started,
he featured a young talented singer named Bernadette Bascom. She has
become a popular vocal coach at SAS, having moved to Seattle after a
20-year career starring in the MoTown Review in Las Vegas. She will be
the headliner in a fund-raising concert April 6 at the Northshore
Performing Arts Center on the Bothell High School campus. It’s
programs like the Music Project that may not survive the school
district’s need to make tough, unpopular decisions to balance its
budget for the next three years. The impact of restrictive urban growth
mandates has begun catching up with Northshore, as young families with
children are priced out of the housing market and look to the North. The
resulting apartment building boom typically brings residents without
school age children. As a result, enrollment decline is predicted to
continue and with it the possibility of an elementary school closing in
Woodinville. State funding based on enrollment will again suffer.
Programs not included in the core curriculum requirements mandated by
the state may get the axe. The
Music Project at SAS represents a $25,000 yearly investment in nearly
half of the school’s student body. It appears that it will take
outside sponsorship for the program to continue. It’s
innovative programs like Jim Geiszler started that have helped SAS grow
from a school for drop-outs to a school of choice for kids whose lives
sprout and blossom from such experiences. Honors deservedCongratulations
to Kenmore’s unofficial town historian Priscilla Droge, recipient of
the McMaster Heritage Award. It was presented at the 8th
annual founders day celebration of the Kenmore Heritage Society. Annual
scholarships in the field of education and the performing arts will
first be awarded in 2009 in memory of Dr. Karen Forys. Memorial and her
family’s contributions to the Northshore Scholarship Foundation will
provide a $50,000 endowment from which the scholarships will be funded. See February 27 column for photos and Music Project update
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