Northgate Music Director Narrowly Avoids Job Loss, But Music Education's Still Threatened in the MDUSD

For a month, Greg Brown braced himself for joblessness.

The instrumental music director at Northgate High School was one of 25 Mt. Diablo Unified School District music teachers slipped the pink slip as part of a move to slash nearly $50 million from the district's three-year budget. He was one of 170 teachers in the district to receive layoff notices in mid-May

Despite the stress of wondering where he would earn his paycheck next school year, Brown prepared to showcase his students' talent at a May 17 fundraising show at Yoshi's, Oakland's famed purveyor of some of the world's best jazz music. But before the show began, the man responsible for fashioning Northgate's music curriculum into a storied success heard the first shred of good news since the budget talks began: He gets to keep his job.

"It was such a relief," said Brown, 50, who called the past month a "terrible" waiting game.

The district, which spans Walnut Creek and Concord, has become one of the most dramatic examples in the region of the sacrifices schools are forced to make in light of California's financial crisis. And since music isn't considered part of a student's core curriculum, its various programs and the folks who teach them are among the first in the line of fire.

In fact, concerns about threats to music education prompted concerned parents and teachers to create the Mt. Diablo Music Education Foundation. This Memorial Day weekend, the 21st annual KidFest will take place at Concord's Mt. Diablo High School, and money raised will benefit the foundation.  

Administrators ran out of time to negotiate with the teacher's union over cutting fourth- and fifth-grade prep time, officials said, so it was forced to rescind most of the layoff notices.

If the school lost Brown, it would have lost more than a 25-year teacher. It would have lost the soul of its music curriculum, said Lori Rogala, head of Northgate's Instrumental Music Board, a group that helps pay for students' trips to Disneyland and various music festivals and competitions throughout the year.

"I can't even imagine what it would be like without him," said Rogala, who says her two children, a sophomore and a senior, have blossomed under Brown's instruction. "There would be no music program –people don't realize all the work he puts in. You can't find someone else to do that."

Brown never considered another profession but the one he's in now, he said. Since his days in elementary school, when he jumped from violin to clarinet to his instrument of choice, the saxophone, music shaped his worldview and defined the way he lived.

"For as long as I can remember, I've made choices as a musician," he said.

He chose to major in music through graduate school. All his jobs through college were musical. He played in big bands, small bands, jazz bands, shows and taught private music lessons, to name a few gigs. And because he found his own high school music experience lacking, he set out to teach at that level.

"Because I didn't have the musical experience I wanted in high school, I want to give others a quality music education," he said. "I have really high standards."

Thankfully, said Rogala, the loss of a veteran teacher committed to holding students to that professional standard has been temporarily averted. Still, she added, there's plenty of downside.

Fourth-grade music was dropped from the curriculum district-wide last year and fifth-grade music's under the axe next school year. By the time students move up to high school, unless their parents paid for private lessons, they'll arrive as beginning musicians. And the quality of the six competitive music groups that make up Brown's department will probably plummet.

"I don't even know what music will look like in this district down the line," Brown said. "It's not going to be the same."

Families for years have propped up Northgate's music instruction with private donations and a voluntary pay-to-play fee. And last year the Mt. Diablo Unified Education Foundation was formed in direct response to the bone-deep cuts proposed for all the district's music departments. One of its goals this  year is to drum up enough money to keep fifth-grade music.

Brown said the district, its trustees and families have been incredibly supportive. But there comes a point when that's not enough.

"The situation is such that everyone has to sacrifice something," Brown said.

There will be layoffs, a handful of schools may consolidate or close and more parents will have to pay out of pocket for sports, music and anything else outside of the core English, science and math curriculum.

And unfortunately for Brown, one trait that some said makes him an exemplary music instructor – that it's his one role, his only focus – also imperils his job. Because when money's tight, the district favors teachers whose expertise spans more than one subject. Music teachers with more than one credential stand a higher chance of keeping their jobs.

Like many teachers, Brown is increasingly forced to think of ways to perform with dwindling resources. Music education is better bare-bones, though, than nonexistent, he says.

 To learn music is to learn how to teach oneself, how to make understanding and accountability personal, Brown said. Studies have shown that student musicians are high performers in other subjects. Brown -- who's become a living example of the kind of talent and experience school districts could lose as the fiscal emergency becomes a multi-year crisis -- just wants to stick around to impart those skills to more students.

"It's going to be tough to impart that when music teachers have less time to teach," he said. "But at least there's still a program … music is so vital to early education; it can't go away without serious consequences in student achievement."

At a glance
WHAT: The Mt. Diablo Unified Music Education Foundation and the United Mt. Diablo Athletic Foundation will team up to host KidFest 2010.
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday and Monday
WHERE: Mt. Diablo High School, 2450 Grant St., in Concord
COST: $6 per person, or $5 if you bring a can of food for the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. Proceeds go toward preserving music in elementary schools and high school sports.
INFO: Jay Bedecarre, 408-4014 or www.kidfestconcord.com