NAfME Western Division - VOTE SOON!
Candidates Renee Shane-Boyd & Michael D. Stone
A reminder that we are looking forward to elections in January ~
Western Division: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah, Nevada, and India
Elections will open on January 9, 2018. Division presidents preside at their board meetings and communicate their concerns to the National Executive Board. The elected division president-elect will take office one week prior to the National Assembly in June 2018, and assume the office of Division President in July, 2020.
Read each candidate's responses to the topics at hand and vote this January for your Western Division President Elect.
Renee Shane-Boyd
Bio
Current professional music education position: Band Director, Catalina Foothills High School, Tucson, AZ
Renee Shane-Boyd has a long history of service in leadership positions at the school, community, regional, and state level in Arizona. She has served as Southeast Regional Band Chair, secretary and treasurer for the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association, Vice President of High School Activities for the Arizona Music Educators Association, and from 2013 - 2015 she served as President for the AMEA during which time she oversaw the 75th Anniversary celebration of AMEA. She is the Fine Arts Chair for the Catalina Foothills School District where she has served on numerous curriculum and architectural committees during her tenure. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus and is president of the Parents’ Executive Committee.
In her career as a music educator, she has served as Director of Bands in the Catalina Foothills School District for 33 years where she has taught elementary, middle school, and high school concert band, jazz band and marching band in addition to numerous small ensembles. She is currently Director of Bands at Catalina Foothills High School. The program is known for its diversity and excellence in all performance areas, concert, marching, and jazz, and the marching band has consistently been the largest high school marching band in the state of Arizona for over 15 years. Her concert and jazz ensembles have performed numerous times at the Arizona Music Educators In-Service Conference, and the bands have performed nationally and internationally at venues including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Hawaii, Australia, and the 2008 Pre-Olympic ceremonies in Beijing China.
Her work as a clinician and conductor includes the Southern Arizona Band Orchestra Directors Honor Band, the Arizona Elementary All-state Band, the TUSD Honor Band, NAU Summer Music Camp, and she is regularly a guest conductor with the Arizona Symphonic Winds in Tucson, Arizona.
Awards and honors include the OM Hartsell Excellence in Music Education Award, University of Arizona Honored Educator, 2009 Teacher of the Year Award in the Catalina Foothills School District, AMEA Longevity in Teaching Award, and in 2015 the Rotary International named her a Paul Harris Fellow for outstanding contributions to the community.
Western Division Reflections - Renee Shane-Boyd
What do you see as the major challenges facing music education during your term as president?
Attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers is a significant challenge. The pressure to enter professions that will earn a higher rate of pay is a very real life decision for many young adults. Retention is often difficult due to the long work hours and lifestyle choices that many music teaching positions require.
Closely associated with attracting and retaining music teachers is the challenge of training new teachers to be both highly qualified in their area of musical focus but also competent in any area of music that they might be employed to teach. School scheduling, standardized testing, graduation requirements, and funding are elements that affect a music teacher’s course load. Music teachers are often asked to be a specialist in many areas of music. Music course offerings designed to speak to a broad or particular cultural range often require specialty knowledge in order to provide authentic instruction that will truly engage students.
Another significant challenge facing music education is cultivating enough individuals who can clearly communicate the importance of music education for all children to a variety of audiences on a regular basis. Seamlessly building advocacy into our work as music teachers is an important role that needs consistent attention.
What do you see as the major challenges facing NAfME?
One of the major challenges facing NAfME is to maintain a constant level of relevance to music teachers K-12. Teachers at these levels may clearly see the benefit of belonging to their state organization if professional development is regularly offered in some form such as an annual state conference or if festivals and student activities are sponsored by the state organization. Often, teachers at the elementary and secondary levels, however, do not understand the relevance of the national organization because it is far removed from their mind as they carry out their day to day work.
How should our Association respond to these challenges?
NAfME can respond to the challenge of relevancy to teachers in the field by continuing to be a leader in organizing coalitions of varied music and arts organizations. The NCCAS is an example of work accomplished through these means that provides tools for both administrators and teachers. Division leadership should develop a proactive plan to regularly message about this type of work at the national level.
Division and national officers attending state conferences provides a vital connection with local music teachers. These leaders playing a meaningful role in the conference whether through presenting sessions or speaking about key issues helps create an awareness of the work of the national organization.
Attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers requires a complex approach. A primary determinant of a student choosing to pursue music education is having a meaningful experience in music themselves. Providing resources that will allow teachers to offer music instruction that reaches a broad range of students, sponsoring professional development opportunities, and creating an understanding for the need for highly qualified music teachers and its importance to our students are important responses to this challenge.
Michael D. Stone
Bio
Michael D. Stone earned the B.A. in Music Education/Performance and the M.Ed. in Education from University of California, Los Angeles. He works as the Visual and Performing Arts Coordinator for the Bakersfield City School District (BCSD), where he previously served as instrumental music teacher at Chipman Junior High School. Band and orchestras at Chipman consistently earned Unanimous Superior Ratings at California Music Educators Association (CMEA) ratings festivals during his tenure, and performed at the state conferences of CMEA and California Band Directors Association (CBDA). Mr. Stone was featured in the January 1999 issue of The Instrumentalist Magazine, and has written several articles for the magazine since that time. Under his leadership, BCSD was named a Best Community for Music Education by the National Association of Music Merchants the past five years. The District’s innovative Music In Our Schools Week program received a 2014 Golden Bell Award from the California School Boards Association.
Mr. Stone is Immediate Past President of CMEA, and a past president of CBDA, CMEA Central Section, and the Kern County Music Educators Association. He currently serves as the Western Division Representative on the NAfME Council of Music Program Leaders. A member of numerous professional associations, he was inducted into the American School Band Directors Association in 2001. Mr. Stone, a euphoniumist, is a founding member of the Bakersfield Winds. Active as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor, Mr. Stone has conducted numerous honor groups and clinics throughout California, as well as in Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. He has served for many years as a guest conductor at Cazadero Music Camp in California’s Sonoma County.
Western Division Reflections - Michael D. Stone
Question #1: As your involvement with NAfME Leadership has evolved, and through communication with our constituency, what do you see as a pressing challenge/need unique to the Western Division? How will you address that challenge?
NAfME Western Division’s greatest strength lies in the diversity of its students, each of whom come from communities that reflect our rich, unique, American cultural heritage. Our students are united by their love of music. Over the next decade, music educators in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah have the opportunity to grow and expand music education in each state as we support both innovation with tradition in our school music curriculums.
ethnic demographics in Western Division have changed over the past twenty years. Yet, our music curriculum in many cases has not.
I believe that our biggest challenge unique to the Western Division will be confronting the idea that tradition and innovation are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, music education should reflect the students we teach, and that includes our diverse culturally heritage that we all hold in common as Americans. We must celebrate opportunities to expand music curricular offerings in our schools to include those outside of the traditional idioms of band, choir, and orchestra, all the while continuing to grow and support traditional music education opportunities.
In my region of California, our student population is 88% Latino, and 88% of our students are identified as lower socio-economically status, defined as a household of four earning less than $20,000 per year. Our traditional band, choir, and orchestra student participation rates have expanded 121% at the junior high/middle school level over the past decade, bucking a national trend! I believe that our success lies in our work making our traditional music curriculum relevant to our student population and attracting students to a program that expects excellence. All of our students want to be the best they can be. While our enrollment in traditional music classes has grown exponentially, so has our expansion of the District’s Mariachi Program. Where only one school participated in the program two years ago, now six schools participate!
My point is that schools can and must offer a variety of curriculums, and if there is excellence in the work of the music faculty, students can thrive in an environment where traditional and innovation are the norm. Our students deserve a first-class education in music with diverse and rich curriculum.
Question #2: What support do you feel you can offer to our states in our division in reference to the current ESSA developments?
Music education must be viewed as a fundamental part of every child’s education. When Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, it committed to the view that music education must be included as a foundational, comprehensive part of learning in all American schools. Furthermore, for the first time in history, “music” is called out as a subject in the new law. Our biggest challenge today is convincing decision-makers that music education is central to all students’ learning, and must be viewed as a required part of every student’s education.
As advocates, we must learn to proactively educate the public about music education, communicate its significant value for society, and build networks that effectively respond to threats when they arise. All of us must take responsibility for being outstanding advocates for our students!
Specifically, in the role of NAfME Western Division President, I would work to collect and analyze data from each Western Division State regarding the use of federal funds for music education throughout the Division as a result of ESSA. My goal would be to identify exemplars that could replicated by our other state MEA’s in the Division. We know that federal funding is a significant portion of many school district budgets, especially in communities where students face living in poverty. We simply need to see where funding is most effectively leveraged, and replicate that work.
I would also expect NAfME to be the voice of music education advocacy in Washington, D.C., with regards to ESSA. Since educational policy is the primarily implemented and regulated at the state and local levels, NAfME is challenged with ensuring that all American children receive sequential, standards-based music education taught by licensed educators. NAfME must work directly with its state affiliates to create a powerful national infrastructure which can adeptly impact music education policy in every American school. Our organization must be dynamic, proactive, and poised to address crises.
I would work direction with our outstanding NAfME Leaders to impact the use of federal funding for music education throughout the Western Division.
Question #3: The tiered participation of our organization (NAfME Retires, Currently teaching, New teachers, Collegiate, Tri-M) demands multilayered conversations. How can we maintain relevance and engage all of them in the conversation of music education?
This is a wonderful question. Our solution is a multi-faceted approach to serving our individual members and potential members. Perhaps most significant to the discussion is an understanding of the general characteristics of the various generations reflected in the profession today and how they impact one’s membership in NAfME.
Baby boomers (i.e., those generally born between 1946-1964) are joiners. They are a generation that joins because it is expected. They are passionate about issues, and often question the status quo in society, working to make the world a better place. Generation X’ers (i.e., those generally born between 1961-1981), sometimes called the “latch-key” generation, are more likely to join if they know they will get something tangible in return. They are independent thinkers. Membership services are important to X’ers. Lastly, Millennials (i.e., those generally born between 1982-1996) may not want to join, but rather serve the profession in their own way to make the profession stronger. This generation is sometimes thought to be the next “great” generation. Millennials are our future! We must begin to recognize their ideas and passions as we consider the structures of NAfME.
I believe that membership, as a concept, will evolve over the next decade. NAfME must be willing to address its current paradigm of membership, and explore ways to provide membership benefits that appeal Millennials, who will lead our organization in just a few short years. Generational views of membership vary, and NAfME must reach Baby Boomers, Generation X’ers, and Millennials! Our future will depend upon appealing to all music educators.
NAfME must maximize its operational vitality so as to draw upon the strengths of its many fine employees and volunteers. Exemplary customer service must be a constant priority, as well as strong communication systems, effective messaging platforms, and modern technological infrastructure to support our work.
Lastly, our organization must be collaborative, building partnerships with other music and arts education organizations, industry, and the community as a whole. Working in isolation is not an option in our world today. It is important that NAfME provide leadership, bringing together our family of associations to grow and build music education throughout America.