MVHS has an eight-class block schedule that will allow your child to take a maximum of 32 full year classes in their high school career.  PLEASE NOTE: students can be in band for four years and get everything they need to graduate, even on the Honors Diploma track! Of the 18 band members in the Class of 2006, 9 graduated with the Honors Diploma, 11 were members of the National Honor society, 2 graduated with High Honors and 5 with Highest Honors.

Often people are concerned about their grades if they are in band in high school. During band season our students often find that their grades are better because they are less likely to procrastinate. They know they have limited time, so they do what needs to be done and learn some valuable time management skills in the process. For example: In the class of 2006, of 18 band members, 13 members were in the top 25% of their class and all were in the top 50% of their graduating class. 

There is after-school time required for rehearsals and performances. However, it is not nearly the overwhelming time commitment many believe it to be. During the Marching Season we practice after school/evenings 3 times a week, and practice or competitions are scheduled for most Saturdays in September and October. We also practice in the summer, including 2 full weeks of camp just before school starts. The amount of time we invest in band is about the same as the time spent by most school athletic teams. After marching season is over there are very few after-school rehearsals. Yes, band is a major commitment of time and energy, but as with anything worthwhile, the more you invest, the more you will get out of the program. Excellence takes an investment of time. We can all agree that is an important concept for teens to learn.

This comes down to how much you have to invest, and how involved you want to be. We have many things you can do, from assisting with uniforms, meals, and equipment to chaperoning on overnight trips. Yes, you may also devote time to transporting to and from rehearsals and other events, but carpools can often be arranged Check the booster FAQ and the booster pages for more ways to get involved.

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Most importantly support your child's decision to participate in band. This is an activity that provides a home away from home for your child and offers them the chance to make friends and memories to last forever. That doesn't mean you have to be here every time the doors are open, but just like any activity  (karate, dance, gymnastics or piano) band requires some sacrifices. Try it! You will find a whole new world when you become involved in the band program. Many of our band parents come back years later and share stories of how students and other parents have become life-long friends. Secondly encourage your child to stay active in the band year-round and not just during the marching season. Our most successful band members study privately outside of school and often go on to play music as adults.

When one person is missing during marching practice, the problem is amplified many times over. It is simply impossible to learn to march a show if there are "holes" instead of bodies on the practice field. Those students who are at practice can't figure out where to go because the people their drill relates to are missing and the people who are missing don't know where to go when they return. Everybody loses. If your child MUST miss rehearsal or part of a rehearsal, notify Mr. Barnett as much in advance as possible. Wednesdays are left free to allow students to take care of Doctor's, Dentist, other appointments. Please make every effort to schedule those on Wednesday. I know that many offices set their schedules well in advance, but they will change appoint times...after all you pay their salaries! Excused absences will not affect student grades, however excessive absences may. Unexcused absences WILL affect student grade and possibly student participation in competitive performances.

A marching contest is an opportunity for bands to perform their marching shows in front of a panel of judges who offer an assessment to help them improve their performance and skills. We obtain valuable feedback about our progress as individuals and as a program. Although we never "live or die" by any one judge's or any panel's opinion of our performance, it is important that we learn the value of giving maximum effort and standing by the results as our best possible effort that day. More importantly, it is a chance to perform for an audience that is specifically there to enjoy the efforts of marching bands that are striving to achieve excellence. We do not compete to “win” because we know we cannot control the outcome of any contest. We can only control our performances. Competitions are intense times, yet some of the greatest memories band students have will come from those days. Parents play a vital role on competition days. There is so much involved in moving, feeding, supervising and organizing the band students on these days there in no possible way we could compete without our parent group! Making certain everything needed gets to the performance, everything gets set up, students fed at the right time, water made available before and after performances – these and many other tasks are accomplished by very supportive parents.

Even if you are not on duty in those ways, a prime responsibility is to take your place in the audience. Our parents are some of the most supportive of any at a competition, that’s easy and natural, but also of the other bands performing. Every band works hard to achieve their level of excellence, and deserves to be cheered and applauded and to receive a standing ovation from everyone in the audience, because what marching bands do today is nothing short of miraculous. We expect our parents to give their support to every band that performs. Even though there are some parents from other schools that act as if their support for another band is disloyal to their own child’s band, that is not the stance we take.

All members of the MVHS Band will stand with silent pride as awards are announced and graciously accept the results, regardless of outcome. Some people misinterpret this as arrogance, or think the band is being punished. It is neither. Instead, we teach our students to show appreciation and respect for those who have earned the right to score ahead of us, as well as to gracefully accept our successes.

We never gloat. We never cry "Foul!" regardless of how we may feel about the quality of our performance. We ask our supporters to uphold this same high standard of behavior - at the competition and afterwards as well. Some of our competitors will not understand that we are able to congratulate those who are ahead of us and appreciate their performance. Those are the people that will not ever know the true reason for participating in competition, but will mistakenly equate “winning” with “coming in first.” We will come in first when we deserve to based on our performance. Until then, we know "winning" is the state of every individual having endured the hard work, taken the chance of competing, and done their personal best in the pursuit of excellence.

The band's image is based on each individual. Our public reputation is based on our appearance, our actions, and our projection of pride and organization. It is the responsibility of each member and our supporters to insure that we present the best possible image at all times.

The marching band performs at all home football games and at 7 to 9 competitions or other events. After marching season ends, the Concert Band gives 3 or 4 concerts through the remainder of the school year. In addition the Concert Band participates in the ISSMA Organizational Contest in April. Additional performance opportunities are available to those that chose to participate in Winter Guard, Percussion Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble.

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The band will begin rehearsals in June, practicing for both the Fall show and the town parade. Schedules for these rehearsals will be posted on the website as early as possible in the Spring. The color guard and drum line will have more rehearsals times scheduled to allow them to learn the specialized skills needed for their area. There will also be two weeks of band camp shortly before school starts back for the fall semester. Dates for all rehearsals will be made available in the late winter / early spring. There are usually 2-3 rehearsals after camp week before school begins. After school begins, we’ll go to our regular rehearsal schedule – Mondays: 3:30 – 6:00, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00-9:00. Occasionally the rehearsals will shift due to a schedule conflict and we try to give as much notice as possible to allow work schedules and such to be adjusted. There will also be Saturday “camp days” that will be listed on the band calendar, where we’ll usually spend 4-6 hours in rehearsal, with a break for lunch. There is almost always a rehearsal block of time on Saturdays when there is a local competition. This all carries on until the last competition, which is usually the last weekend of October. We make every effort not to change the rehearsal schedule and to make any changes at least two weeks in advance.

Note: that arrival at practice a minimum of 10 minutes early is "On time" and arrival at the posted start time is "Late." Please be here 10 minutes early and on the field ready to start at the posted start time! 

We try very hard to end rehearsals on time. At times we may run right up to the end time and then take a few minutes to make necessary announcements. At any rate, after rehearsal the students have to put away equipment and get their stuff ready to go home, so please allow 10-15 minutes after the announced end of rehearsal before you would expect them to be ready to get in the car. When you do come to pick up you child, please pull into a parking spot in the lot beside the football field or behind the band room – the drive next to the band room becomes very congested and this makes it dangerous for our students stepping around cars into traffic. Please give us your assistance in making this transition!

For performances, we prepare an information sheet for each week that is made available to students on Monday or Tuesday of that week. The schedule is also available at www.siguys.net/mvhs under the schedule link. The schedule will have arrival and dismissal times – dismissal times are estimates, since we have no control over how long a football game or band competition might actually last, or how traffic might affect our arrival time. However, we are usually within 15 minutes of the schedule, and if it appears we will not we try to let the students know to call home.

Rehearsals are never canceled due to inclement weather. We will not usually rehearse outdoors in the rain, unless it is just drizzle or intermittent light rain. In the event of steady rain, we will rehearse indoors and go out at the first opportunity. Students should dress for the weather, whether hot or cold. Not having the proper attire is not a satisfactory reason for having a poor rehearsal. Students should wear comfortable shoes (preferably low-topped tennis shoes) and socks for rehearsals. This is important in that the style of marching step we use requires that the foot and ankle be permitted to move freely. Caps and sun block are recommended. There will always be water at rehearsal (although students are encouraged to bring a personal water jug), and in extreme cases of cold or heat the rehearsal format may be altered, but the rehearsals are never canceled.

Very rarely a marching competition will be canceled due to rain, but this does not happen in most cases. If it is raining on a competition day, we will still load up and travel to the site unless we are notified that the competition has been canceled. Students will not be asked to stand or sit for lengthy periods in the rain – if we can find no other shelter we will return to the buses. For home football games, a rainy Friday night can be difficult, but we generally wait in the band room to see how the rain is going to develop. If it is possible by half-time to go out and perform and remain for the rest of the game we will – if not, we will decide to dismiss when it becomes apparent that we will not be able to perform. In the event of light rain, we often issue ponchos and try to wait it out in the stadium, leaving the woodwind instruments either in cases or indoors. In the very rare event that we get information that conclusively points to canceling a performance far enough in advance, announcements will be put on band website www.siguys.net/mvhs .

We take various types of trips from short local band contests and longer distant competitions to extended trips on a four year rotation of up to 4-7 days. Those trips all require that an adequate number of parents act as chaperones. Overnight trips are almost always on chartered motor coach, and we stay in moderate level hotels. Students are usually four to a room, and chaperones generally have 2-3 rooms of students they are responsible for checking. On most trips hotel management is easy, because we are only at the hotel when it is time for sleeping. Boys and girls are usually on separate floors and boy-girl visitation is off-limits on those floors. Some or all meals are included in the trips – full details about trips, including meals, are made available well in advance. Waking time not taken up with rehearsal or performance is generally planned and may include educational as well as fun activities. 

The Band Directors, along with the Band Booster trip committee determines the trip location and makes all travel plans for the major trips. Trips are usually planned at least a year in advance. Participation in band trips is optional. Band parents act as chaperones for all band trips. Chaperoning a band trip is GREAT fun, but the are many responsibilities involved. Chaperones must be prepared to be "on duty" long hours, be willing to be responsible for a group of young people they may or may not know ahead of time, and be willing to be surrogate parent, nurse, policeman and travel guide all in one. Plus, chaperones are expected to pay their own way just like the students. Although you will be exhausted when you return, chaperones have just as much fun as the kids. Each band student and chaperone is expected to pay his or her own way to participate in band trips. We organize the trip and work up a budget well in advance and the cost of the trip is broken down into "manageable" payments due at intervals throughout the year. The band boosters work hard to organize opportunities for the band members to raise money to help pay for their trips, but ultimately, the expense of the band trip is the responsibility of the student and the parent.

Just like with any family, it takes a lot of money to keep things "up and running." While the band does receive support from the school system, about 5% of our current budget, there's a big gap to be filled. Yes, we could operate a band with only the funds provided from these sources, but it would not be the same band we have come to love and respect - the kind of band opportunity we want for our children -- or the kind of program that could keep pace with other schools in our area.

When we travel on school buses, we pay only for the driver & small part of mileage – the county pays the rest of the expense – fuel, use of the bus, etc. There is also about $2500 we have each year for classroom supplies and instrument repairs. Periodically we are given money through the Capital Projects Funds from the state to make instrument purchases. This money comes out of a tightly maintained budget and is not a guarantee each year.

The remainder of funds raised through the boosters and student fees go to many expenses that we feel are necessary to provide the type band program students like ours and a community like Mt. Vernon deserves. A large part of the budget goes to pay a highly talented staff of instructors, who work many hours with the marching band for relatively little pay. All travel expenses for the marching band competitions and group travel are included in the budget, so we do not have to collect travel money from individual students for each trip. The funds you raise pay for instrument and equipment needs not covered from District sources, as well as design expenses for the marching band. Expenses for bus drivers, as well as expenses for the trailers we use to transport our equipment comes out of your fair share, as does money for the basic operation of the band program – things like postage, copier, hospitality, and recruitment. Those funds support other marching band expenses as well, like equipment for the color guard, props, and the myriad of “little expenses” that all add up. A detailed accounting of the Band Booster funds is kept by our volunteer Booster treasurers.

You’ll have the opportunity to spend quality time with your child and over a hundred other outstanding young Americans. The chance to see our young people at their very best may be the number one thing parents get from their child’s involvement in band.