Parents, students reject band director’s reassignment

DAVID HULSE
Posted 8/21/12

WESTFALL, PA — A crowd at the June meeting of the Delaware Valley (DV) Board of Education usually means a battle over the final approval of the new budget, but music and love for a teacher overrode …

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Parents, students reject band director’s reassignment

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WESTFALL, PA — A crowd at the June meeting of the Delaware Valley (DV) Board of Education usually means a battle over the final approval of the new budget, but music and love for a teacher overrode the budget.

The issue was impending replacement of 18-year veteran band director Lance Rauh as director of the DV concert band, and it prompted a standing-room-only turnout of parents and students who vehemently wanted Rauh to stay where he is.

The anticipated change has prompted some 500 signatures to a change.org online petition to keep Rauh in place and many student threats to quit the music program.

District Superintendent Dr. John Bell moved the discussion to the head of meeting agenda and explained that transfers of staff are not board decisions. He did not say where the change originated, but he said it has now come to him. “By the time things get to me, things have gotten ugly.” Bell said he planned to consider the issue further and would not make a final decision before the Fourth of July.

However, Bell said a change was considered because of changing factors in the upcoming school year, including the addition of a new music teacher and the opening of the new elementary school away from the Westfall campus in Matamoras. “There’s a lot of changes and a lot of new bodies,” he said.

He said the law prohibited him from speaking of personnel issues in public, but he did speak to the band’s competitive record. “I’m not happy with the program. DV doesn’t have the number of All-District musicians that a district this size should have, no matter who is teaching it,” he said.

He also expressed surprise at those saying they would leave the program. “I grew up in football. I couldn’t have imagined quitting,” he said.

Numerous parents and students spoke to Rauh’s dedication and individual efforts on behalf of his students.

Board members did not take sides directly, but were complimentary of the civil tone of the petitioners. Member Jack Fisher said the petition was the best he’d seen in his 20 years on the board.

When Bell said he’d gotten emails on both sides and suggested that some on the other side of the issue might have felt intimidated about speaking amid the pro-Rauh group, member Dawn Bukaj asked the audience, “Is anyone intimidated?”

There was no reply.

Member Jack O’Leary drew some nervous laughter when he noted the coincidence of the petitioners’ calls for a re-evaluation of Rauh’s position on the very night that the board was to complete their evaluation of Bell’s performance.

Erika Torres, newly graduated former student president of the Delaware Valley High School concert band said Rauh “knows how to talk to kids. They get the foundation from him. We know,” she said, “that we’ve never heard a concert band play the way we play.”

And when his reassignment was announced, “the whole room was crying,” she said.

“I’m leaving. I’m speaking for those staying,” Torres added.

“This kind of thing only happens with sports and music. Nobody cares who teaches English or algebra,” Bell said.

In other business, the board gave 8-0 final approval, in the absence of member John Wroblewski, to the district’s $78,139,586 budget for 2016-17, which contains no increase in the tax rate of 108.19 mills.

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