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Once again, Central High School strikes up its band

 
Central High School’s newly reformed marching band performs in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade Monday in Brooksville.
Central High School’s newly reformed marching band performs in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade Monday in Brooksville.
Published Jan. 18, 2017

BROOKSVILLE — The band in trim blue jackets and black pants belted out a rousing version of My Country, 'Tis of Thee as it marched under overhanging limbs of oak and camphor trees in Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Brooksville.

Other than the ability of this squad from Central High School to keep playing as it climbed the steep grade on Howell Avenue, not much distinguished it from the handful of other school bands in the parade.

Which, for Central, is a distinction in its own right.

The school, after a nearly two-year hiatus, is now like almost every other high school in the Tampa Bay area: It is represented by a marching band.

The restoration of the Central's Raging Bear Brigade is a sign of the uneven progress in the Hernando County School District's effort to restore music and other art programs that were eliminated over the past six years, mostly because of a lack of funding.

Central band director Alan Bonko works half of each day at nearby West Hernando Middle School and was also able to renew band classes there shortly after his hiring in November 2015.

Next year, he will work full time at Central, meaning the school will offer an expanded range of band-related classes. So will West Hernando, which also plans to hire a full-time director.

That means all of the district's middle schools now offer band classes, important feeders to high school programs.

The picture is not as bright at the district's 10 elementary schools, seven of which are without full-time music teachers.

That's three fewer than in 2014, when the Times reported that Central and Nature Coast Technical High School were the only full-service high schools in the Tampa Bay area without marching bands. A lack of training in the lower grades was cited as a reason for the low participation that factored into the decisions to eliminate the schools' band programs.

Elementary students at one of the district's three K-8 schools also lack access to music classes, according to a table provided by the district.

A district staffing policy requires that elementary-level programs in the county offer enough "specials" — classes such as music, art and physical education — to provide at least one class per day for all students, said deputy schools superintendent Gina Michalicka.

But a total of a dozen specials teachers were eliminated when school budgets were cut 10 percent in 2011 and 2012 and when schools were forced to trim one teaching position each before the 2015-16 school year, according to a table provided by Heather Martin, the district's executive director of business services.

A shortage of certified music teachers has also played a part in the elimination of programs, Michalicka said.

Debi Vermette, the principal at Deltona Elementary School, said her school unsuccessfully advertised for a qualified music teacher before deciding to use the allocation to hire another specials teacher.

"You want a quality program," Vermette said. "You don't want to offer music just so you can say you have music."

Vermette, like some other elementary school principals, has tried to fill the gap with clubs or other arts offerings — in Deltona's case an after-school drama and arts program funded with a grant from the Hernando County Education Foundation.

Nature Coast principal Toni-Ann Noyes likewise said she has no plans to resume offering band, and instead will focus on other arts programs, including drawing, drama and the school's well-regarded video production class.

School Board Chairwoman Beth Narverud said that if the district's finances continue to improve, it should aim to restore music classes at all schools.

"I do feel that music has a tremendous benefit," Narverud said. "I'd like to work on it and see how we can get that moving in the right direction."

Central principal Kelly Slusser said having a band is essential to forming a school's identity.

"It's a huge part of the school culture," Slusser said.

Bonko was hired by previous Central principal John Stratton, now the district's executive director of academic services. Last spring, Bonko was able to teach band and percussion classes that helped build interest and enabled him to recruit many of the 70 students, including members of the color guard, who are now in the band program.

That number should increase as more trained students arrive at the school from West Hernando and as Central offers additional music classes, such as jazz band and guitar.

The smaller squad that showed up Monday had begun to warm up — drums banging and horns blasting — as Bonko talked about the feeling of leading the band on the field at its first football game last fall.

"The kids were really excited, and the community was really excited, people saying, 'It's great to have a band back at the games,' " he said.

Band captain Nathan Burnside said he missed performing on his baritone sax, which he started playing in middle school.

"It felt great" to perform at the first game, said Burnside, an 18-year-old senior.

"It felt like were really starting off something new, something fresh."

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com; follow @ddewitttimes.