Ever take attendance at a concert by looking at the roster and checking off who is present and who is not? Were the beginning students required to stay but after their portion of the concert, you might have lost a few in the shuffle? Were all the students supposed to remain to put away all the equipment after the concert and it seems many have headed for the ice cream store and left you and the few dedicated students to stay and clean up? The solution is simple. You can use Microsoft Word’s mail merge feature to print attendance cards to either place on their chairs or hand to them during warm-up. The cards that don’t get handed out are students that are really tardy or that have not attended the performance. A large empty pretzel container can be used to collect the cards after dismissal. Any cards you handed out that didn’t get turned in means that student did not remain to contribute their fair share in putting everything away. Credit goes to Mrs. Leslie Antmann, choral director at Markham Woods Middle for the attendance card idea and the printed card part was added by Mr. White since we know that the legibility of student handwriting can be problematic as well as students actually writing their last name.
That is a freebee for you and one of the many organization tools I have learned in running the business side of a band program. There are so many details to organize even in a small program. Having simple solutions to expedite the management means less time dealing with the peripherals so you can spend more time actually teaching or more time with your family and friends! There are many easy tips that I may be able to give you with a simple phone conversation that I would be happy to provide at no charge. More complicated solutions or training is available at a very reasonable rate. Sometimes you may even be able to count the training as professional development in your district.
Mr. White along with two other band directors were the founders of the Lake Mary-Longwood Summer Band Camp in 2008. It is a local camp for middle school band students that includes beginning band, concert band and two levels of jazz band classes. Local band directors, professional clinicians and high school volunteers team up to work individual sections and sometimes even individual students get one-on-one assistance in mastering skills on their instrument. Even though Mr. White has passed the camp on to new leadership in 2017, the camp continues to successfully grow.
If you would like Mr. White to assist in helping you start a summer band camp, increase the efficiency of your current camp’s logistical management or aspects of running daily operations during the school year, please visit the contact page by clicking ‘Contact Us’ on the menu at the top of this page and Mr. White will personally assist you or refer you to someone near you who can positively impact your band program.