Eric Barnum

Bernadette Bascom

Jim Geiszler

Sanjaya Malakar and Bernadette, his voice coach

Was that Sanjaya Malakar who flew in special from New York to support Bernadette Bascom and the students from SAS at the first Music Project producer’s party? It certainly was. The popular American Idol performer spends most of his time in the Big Apple “working on my music.”
            If you didn’t come away from that performance properly pumped, then music and creativity are not part of your DNA – quoting Bernadette.  
            As one tear-struck Rotarian who attended this first fund-raiser commented, “The gift Bernadette is giving the students is truly life changing, as is evidenced when you see them on stage.  There may be sorrow in their eyes but there is also joy and hope in their hearts. Watching that performance of The Music Project and feeling just a bit of the hope that these children feel was the most profound experience I have had in a very long time.”
            The party raised over 60 per cent of the project’s $20,000 operating budget for the balance of the school year, assuring that this program for the underserved can not only be continued at the Secondary Academy for Success but possibly expanded to discover more Olivias, Jazmyns, Colins, Kendras and Taylors at junior high and elementary schools in the Northshore district.
            The Music Project is the brainchild of retired SAS math teacher Jim Geiszler, who with Bernadette, have more plans in the works than one can count. - JBH.

Colin, Sibly, Arianna

Heidi, Jazmyn, Taylor

Olivia, Sibly

From Bothell/Kenmore Reporter 
 November 12, 2008

NOTICED

            Under the auspices of a new non-profit, “The Music Project”, vocalists from the Secondary Academy of Success will perform next month at the Children’s Hospital “Festival of Trees” fund-raising celebration in Seattle. The jazz and blues music project at the school, headlined by well-known professional jazz stylist Bernadette Bascom, is gaining in notice and popularity. Students performed music of Elton John at a school concert, then repeated for the public at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Woodinville. The Children’s Hospital sponsoring volunteers were so taken with the SAS project earlier this year during a Motown Evening at the Northshore Performing Arts Center that they invited the teenagers to sing for the children.

            The Music Project will stage a fund-raiser December 4 at the Hollywood Schoolhouse in Woodinville in hopes of bringing in enough money to operate the program at SAS and possibly other district schools during the current school year.

            More details on that at www.musicpojectfoundation.org in case you’d like to go or donate items to auction. Jim Geiszler at (206) 293-9327 is another good source.

Producer’s Party (November 26, 2008) 

          Here’s one more unabashed plug for the December 4 Producer’s Party supporting “The Music Project” – the program supporting music performance classes and concerts at the Secondary Academy for Success. The new foundation hopes to raise enough funds to secure the program for another academic year at SAS as well as provide seed money to expand the concept to a junior high and elementary school in the Northshore District. It’ll cost $35 each to enjoy finger food and a beverage and hear the SAS kids belt out some jazz numbers. This will bring much-needed cheer and happy thoughts for the holidays. Jim Geiszler has the details at (206) 293-9327.

            And, a note about beverage selections – the event is at Hollywood Schoolhouse, right in the heart of Woodinville wine country.

by John B. Hughes 
who writes a twice-monthly community affairs column that appears 
in the weekly Bothell-Kenmore Reporter. He was owner-publisher 
of the Northshore Citizen from 1961-1988. His present column is entitled:
Northshore Citizen

            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 (2007). 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.