Ki-Be schools performing arts funding strikes flat note

BENTON CITY -- Band instruments held together by duct tape. Drama patrons sitting far back in the theater just so they can hear. Actors working to find a spot with lighting on the stage.

Those are a few of the concerns voiced by three teachers from Kiona-Benton City's middle and high schools at last week's school board meeting.

"The middle school piano is missing a leg and is held up by a doorstop," said Wysteria Edwards, a seventh-grade English teacher and the middle school's drama teacher next year.

Edwards, along with high school drama and choir director Rob Hanson and band director Sean McClanahan, said almost $80,000 is needed to bring up the schools' performing arts departments, though the teachers told the Herald the district has been supportive of their efforts.

Board members asked the teachers for more details on their department needs before moving forward, though they and Superintendent Rom Castilleja agreed there are needs.

"We're at the stage where we're getting more kids, but we have no instruments," he said of the schools' band programs.

The budgets for upgrading the department's equipment are small. The high school programs get about $1,500 a year to cover equipment costs as well as expenses for attending festivals and other performances, Hanson said. The middle school programs don't have a definitive budget, and teachers make individual requests for spending.

That's despite increasing interest in the performing arts in the district. More than 100 students participate in band in the middle and high schools, McClanahan said. Thirty students participate in the drama program, Hanson said, and another group participates in choir.

Those numbers will jump again next year, the teachers said, with dozens more expected to join the band program and Edwards expanding the drama program to the middle school.

"There's obviously a huge interest, and that's our goal: to build a feeder class to (Rob Hanson's) programs at the high school," Edwards said of the drama program.

The teachers' top priorities cost just more than $8,000. That would replace the upright pianos in the middle and high schools and upgrade the sound and lighting systems for the district's performing arts center.

The pianos are old and need frequent tuning. It also is difficult to move them, which is a safety issue, Hanson said.

In the district's theater, audience members sitting in the front 10 rows often can't hear performers because the sound system only reaches the rows behind them and students can't hear themselves on stage to adjust. A lighting "dead spot" at the front of the stage also makes it impossible to fully light the performers.

About $70,000 is needed to address the district's instrument needs. McClanahan said he offered the figure as an illustration of the need and not as a request for funding. The district's flutes, clarinets, saxophones and trumpets, loaned to students who cannot afford to buy or rent their own, often need repair and some students are having to hold them together as they play, he said. The district also lacks some large orchestral instruments, such as timpani or large kettle drums.

The teachers aren't just waiting for the district to provide funds. McClanahan said a middle school arts booster club is up and running and has raised $400, which likely will purchase a badly needed flute. More fundraising is being planned, grant applications are being prepared and an instrument drive is in the works.

Board members discussed the feasibility of renting instruments from dealers. McClanahan said that could be difficult as dealers often have individual renting agreements rather than bulk arrangements.

Board member Wayne Elston acknowledged that replacing the pianos is a safety concern, given their weight and difficulty in moving but told the teachers they "need to scale it down a bit" regarding their proposals.

-- Ty Beaver: 582-1402; tbeaver@tricityherald.com

This story was originally published May 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Ki-Be schools performing arts funding strikes flat note ."