Depending on your school district, before/after school sectionals could be expected. They were for me and every surrounding school district in my area (DFW).
MS band is 7am-4:30pm teaching if you include sectionals. I got a 25 minute lunch and one conference period during the beginner percussion class. If the HS had a contest or a trip, I was teaching that beginner class. So I taught children bell to bell from 7am through 4:30pm with one 25 min break some days. I would check email during lunch and try my hardest to only do 30 mins of emails after school. I got to school at 6:40 and felt lazy because it was ‘only’ 20 minutes before kids showed up. At a minimum I was at school 6:40-5pm. That’s nearly a 12 hour day. And I tried to cut corners any way I could.
MS band opened my eyes to see that the profession is too many hours. Sure I didn’t have football games or marching contests anymore, but I still had concerts, Saturday region/solo contests, judging requirements for HS, and region meetings that took my time away from family. MS is exhausting.
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