I really didn't think it was a good idea to go forward, and my superintendent would have backed me on it, but she asked that we see what happened. I had a parent who also urged me to push to keep the kids busy and out of trouble. She works in the medical industry and had already noticed a large uptick of teen pregnancies due to extra time on their hands... We were just at State last year too, and if I'm honest I believe a majority of my kids love band for the competitions more than any other part.

We moved on with my terms though. Other than the run we did at UIL, and one 'mock-contest' I ran for our kids at home, we have not done anything without bell covers and masks. The kids know I'm pretty much the crazy teacher if they have a mask below their nose. I push the social distancing, but I'll be the first to confess that some kids that's just impossible for them...

Up until last week I could say that we hadn't had a true case in our high school band program. I lost a primary player this past week, and at one point had an additional three kids out this week due to parental exposure, and one went home sick and has to wait for a negative result. (I hope they are negative!) So far all of the exposures at our high school have been from outside our school environment.

What I found as we moved through the season was that the kids were probably safer working with me than in other activities, safer than in their classrooms (we've forced everyone back face to face now), way safer than in the cafeteria eating, and probably safer than off-campus where no one is telling them what to do. For that reason I didn't stop everything and move to sit-down band after our last game mid-October. It's for that reason I said we would go ahead and do Area.

I will also say the biggest reasons I continued to contest was the location of it being ten minutes down the road. It was closer than any of our away games would have been (we did not go to them), and I give a big amount of credit to our exec secretary for planning out a contest that kept all bands separated. The contest hosts executed that plan well too.

I give area for us on the 12th of December about a 10% chance of happening with the cases I expect to rise at crazy rates by then, but at least the kids got a performance in at this point!

I hate that kids missed out, but I also think that people who chose not to maybe chose the right choice too. Remember there were no good choices this year at all! It's all a pile of bad to choose from. Your mention of fear of being behind though is something I had feared. Having two freshmen classes for fundamentals next year would have been tough. At least we have the majority of fundamentals taught decently this year. With the right senior/junior class though the following year you might be able to get ahead of that. You could also teach some before the end of the year when the 10 hour clock begins on fundamentals?

Best wishes, and I hope everyone has a safe Thanksgiving Break!