Marching Band fees

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MartyNeilan
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Marching Band fees

Post by MartyNeilan »

In addition to a couple hundred dollars for band camp (daytime at the high school), my son's high school band also requires about a grand per year in band fees. I have heard of districts with significantly higher numbers. This is largely to cover the costs of band competitions and festivals; most school instruments are donated (perk of living in Nashville) and the Board of Ed covers new uniforms every so many years.
What is it like in your district?

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Rick F
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Rick F »

I can verify a similar expense in Raleigh, NC area. My grandson (trombone) starts HS next year and my son told me there's a $1000 per per student / per year of responsibility. He has 3 weeks of band camp this summer to learn how to march correctly. The camp is actually in Maryland where it should be a little cooler.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by THE TUBA »

Marching band is expensive nowadays. First place trophies don't buy themselves.
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Biggs
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Biggs »

My high school did not have a marching band. They did not have any instrumental music from (I believe these dates correct) 2010-2013.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Mark »

bloke wrote:... we sold candy bars in the late fall...
We sold genuine Corsacana fruit cakes.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by nycbone »

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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by TubaRay »

I, too, believe things have gotten out of hand. In defense of the high fees(I don't really want to defend them, actually.), Most bands around here do a LOT of fundraising. This makes it possible for those of more limited resources(That would be my family.) to be able to afford to participate.

I would say that October in Texas is an extremely busy month for band and band director. There are band that participate in competitions every Sat. in the month, sometime 2 or more on a given Sat.

As for me, I lived for band when I was in HS. I'm not certain I would continue, if I were coming through the system, today.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by TubaRay »

bloke wrote: Which, I'm sure, is why band director associations award "third", "fourth", "fifth", "most likely to succeed", and "participation award" prizes, have expanded "all-state" into two, three, or four bands, and don't allow extraordinarily hard-working underclassmen to compete with upperclassmen. :(
"
Of course, this is partly brought about because each band represents a school where all the students are "above avg."
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bisontuba
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by bisontuba »

You have to pay four figures to be in a school marching band ?
Absolutely crazy.....
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emcallaway
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by emcallaway »

I'm not sure if I'm closer to the exception or the rule, but you didn't have to pay fees of any kind to play in my high school's marching band. I graduated as recently as 2008 (feels like it was just yesterday) from an area where the marching band program simply wouldn't have survived if students were expected to hand over large sums of cash on a yearly basis. Instead, we did a huge amount of fundraising, including the usual candy bar sales, car washes, pasta dinners, cook outs, yard sales, and so on. Looking back, it's really kind of amazing how many different schemes my band director had cooked up to take us to competitions. My respect for the man grows all the time.

Nowadays, I still play in the odd marching band, but there's always a man at the end of the parade route holding a check for me... 8)
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Carroll
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Carroll »

I teach in a rural, economically very depressed area. We charge NO band fees. We raise monies to hold band camp, at our school, with all drill and arrangements written by me. I hire alumni to help with sectionals (at much less than McDonald's wages) and teach all the marching and maneuvering by myself. If we tried to charge fees...I would lose most of my kids. We are a halftime band that entertains our hometown crowd and we compete on a couple of Saturdays. I choose events that we can show well in and focus on getting inside to concert band as soon as possible. We do not practice after school (except for that one day in 1996 when we were rained out all week and had to do pre-game for the first time of the season).

We cannot compete at the BOA level...but we could not afford the entry fee, anyway.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by tofu »

We sold evergreens - the smell of the band room at Christmas when all those wreaths/garlands were delivered was Awesome! We didn't do festivals/competitions (I'm not even sure they existed up here in the snowbelt back then) but we did 10 football games with a new show/formations for each game. The emphasis was not marching band but concert band / orchestra / jazz band. I couldn't imagine getting enough kids out to do marching band if each student had to pony up $1000. That's a lot of cash no matter where you live.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by MartyNeilan »

In defense of the band, they do have fundraisers. However, between my wife and I we have a very small family circle with which to sell to. Although it may be possible to bring things into work, they strongly frown upon doing that more than once per year. So, figure between family and co-workers that accounts for about $100 or so per year. That leaves a LOT left to be made up. When I was student teaching in another part of the state some years ago, one of the rival bands had an annual fee of around $1700. That included purchasing new uniforms every year custom designed for their show. I think that school eventually went before the state to have to justify the amount, particularly since they were not in a particularly wealthy area. Their justification was that it was an extra curricular activity, if I remember correctly.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by windshieldbug »

bloke wrote:Band isn't extra-curricular. It's curricular.

Tell that to the people that implemented "No Child Left Alone"...
Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow, but only to be troubled and insecure?
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Donn
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Donn »

Band is curricular in the band room.
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MartyNeilan
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by MartyNeilan »

I believe that the deal that was worked out in that $1700 county was that band class during school hours does not require any fees but marching band is extracurricular. Technically somebody could have gone to band class every day but not been involved in anything else. Perhaps someone more familiar with the situation could better elaborate or correct me on that. I am almost positive that there was a state ruling on it.
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Re: Marching Band fees

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Kevin_Iaquinto
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Kevin_Iaquinto »

Our band spent 16K on buses last year...
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Jose the tuba player
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Jose the tuba player »

Kevin_Iaquinto wrote:Our band spent 16K on buses last year...
wow your band must travel alot in fancy buses. :shock:

As someone who graduated last year i know what the struggle is with fundraising, luckily like many lausd schools we had no band fees which is a double edge sword in terms of funding, the sport teams and the band are given no money so everything is fund-raised as an added inconvenience the school takes half of everything fund-raised :evil: . it took 4 years to buy one sousaphone considering that a local music store sold it to us for what they get it for and my former band director paid at least a few 100 out of her own pocket. competition fees are also paid by the director. what i have found is that most of the money we fund-raised goes to fixing peoples mistakes such as putting dents in sousaphones or someone stepping on a trumpet or just overhauls on instruments to keep them playing when they obviously need to be retired.
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Re: Marching Band fees

Post by Radar »

When I was in H.S. although there were a couple of private, and a couple of public schools in the more affluent suburbs, who competed in field show competitions, marching band for us was participating in the Memorial Day parade downtown. I think requiring $1,000.00 per student fees to participate in an after school activity would be a pretty exclusionary practice. I know I would have a very difficult time coming up with $1000.00 per kid, and I make a decent living. I know there are a lot of parents out there that just couldn't do it. If you can't keep the students costs down to a reasonable level by fundraisers, band booster activities, etc. then it probably isn't an activity the school should be sponsoring. When my son was in football we actually ran a casino night with prizes donated by local area businesses (it was legal because there were no cash payouts, you could bid on the prizes using the chips you won during the evening. It was a big hit and raised a ton of money for the team to pay for buses equipment uniforms, coaching staff, etc. If this is something that is important to the parents and students you can get creative and come up with ways to raise the money. I know school budgets are tight, and schools need to focus on classroom instruction, so after school activities like sports, and marching band need to be funded in other ways. Telling kids that they have to come up with $1,000.00 to participate in a school activity is going to leave some deserving students out.
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