MUE 6080 Module 8: A Hong Kong Odyessey

With complete certainty I feel that the band trip to Hong Kong for the Blue Springs band was out of line and should not have happened. As a band director in a small school that also uses middle school students to supplement the high school band when possible, I feel that the trip was way too expensive to begin with and it is sickening to read the information about the five year loan after the trip. I would imagine that this particular school is very similar to mine in that the budget is on the small side and instruments might be old and/or in need of repair. That money could have probably been much better spent on something directly for the classroom.

I don’t want it to sound like I am against band trips because I strive to take the students on a trip every other year, however, we go to locations that are relatively close and inexpensive. For example, this spring we will go to Chicago, IL for a music contest. The cost of $340 per student includes 2 nights in a hotel, transportation, all meals, the festival, a full day at Six Flags, a murder mystery dinner theater, and the musical “The King and I.” To be honest, I try use these trips as a part of my recruiting efforts since we have so many scheduling conflicts against band. Since this is only the second trip the students have gotten to take and the first trip (Pigeon Forge, TN) wasn’t exactly anything to get excited over, I’m really hoping the Chicago trip gets the students excited to the point that they tell other students how much fun it was.

Speaking specifically to the money involved, I find it impressive that the small community in the article came within $30,000 of the Hong Kong trip in a one year period. I offer 4 fundraisers a year for band students and can barely get any participation. Additionally, some parents feel that $340 per student is too high for the above mentioned Chicago trip. I struggle constantly with getting parental involvement and just a few moments ago returned home for working the weekend concession stand fundraiser. In all of our fundraisers, any profit raised is applied to student trip accounts rather than to the band program (for new instruments) and I still struggle to get parent and student involvement. It appears that this band director at Blue Springs had a good relationship with the community and I feel that he should have pursued a smaller trip that could have easily been paid for. Lastly, since he pushed for the Hong Kong trip, he absolutely should have continued working there until the debt was paid. I really hope this is not a true story.