Letter to my daughter's high school principal about her choir program

*I’m never sure if these things are supposed to be OBJECTIVELY Mundane and Pointless. Am I supposed to think myself that it is, or is it okay to share it if I think you guys will think it is?

Anyway, I’m going with the latter. Responses of TL;DR are welcomed. Also, I redacted it to take out personally identifying stuff.*

Dear Dr. Principal,

I have concerns about Choir Teacher’s handling of the choir programs at redacted. This letter will necessarily place more emphasis on the Chamber Choir.

Choir Teacher has promised her Chamber Choir students that she will be present for them at an after-school Choir rehearsal “every other Friday.” Putting aside the fact that this is not nearly often enough to produce the kind of results that the redacted Chamber Choir is known for, she has not followed through on this promise. There has not been a SINGLE after-school rehearsal of the entire Chamber Choir. Nor has there been any Friday after-school activity. This does not give me confidence that the Choir will be ready to turn in an up-to-standard performance in December.

Choir Teacher has apparently announced that she is planning to incorporate the entire Mixed Choir into Chamber Choir when the spring semester begins. While I am not one hundred percent satisfied that this information is accurate, if it is, I am at a loss to understand why she would do this. I generally try to avoid letting speculation stand in for knowledge, but at the moment, it is all I have, and my current speculation is that she wishes to solve the problem of a female-to-male imbalance with this action. Other, more difficult to articulate alternative motivations come to mind, but my sense is that whatever problems the Chamber Choir has, they are not amenable to being solved by packing the roster with singers who, by various metrics, are not as committed to being an elite performance group as are the current members.

On the subject of Chamber Choir morale, an incident has just come up that highlights Choir Teacher’s inattention to the needs of these students. A few weeks ago, one of the sopranos took the initiative to organize an activity for the Chamber Choir members, to be held outside of school hours. The activity is a trip to go to the movie theatres at Shopping Center redacted and watch Pitch Perfect, a movie about an a capella vocal group. The young lady who organized the outing was making ad hoc arrangements with acquaintances who work at Other venue redacted to obtain their tickets at a substantial discount. Choir Teacher has now apparently invited all of the singers in all of the Choirs to join this outing. It is not clear whether any plans are in the works to obtain for more than one hundred people the same discount that was planned for two dozen. In a very substantive way, however, this matter of logistics is beside the point.

What IS the point is that the redacted High School Chamber Choir has, over the years, become an elite group of musicians. The people who auditioned for Chamber Choir last spring have proven both their desire and their merit to be members of that elite group, and Choir Teacher’s actions and apparent plans are already seriously diluting and jeopardizing that elite status. Part of what has always made membership in the Chamber Choir a desirable thing is the exclusive group activities that Chamber Choir singers enjoy together. Opening these activities to the entire Choir department completely undercuts this benefit.

Please understand: the registered Democrat in me has always been somewhat ambivalent about the fact that “elite” necessarily implies “exclusive,” which in turn, necessarily implies “exclusionary.” However, I made my peace with that last year, when it became clear how well it has worked to maintain the redacted Chamber Choir as a first-rate group, with a first-rate reputation. There’s also the fact that I am a dyed-in-the-wool implacable foe of Major League Baseball’s “Designated Hitter” rule, and the principle that people who receive coveted privileges (such as batting, and singing in elite ensembles) have to EARN those privileges is pretty important to me.

There seems to be a clash of cultures between what Choir Teacher wants to do, and what current Chamber Choir members have become accustomed to. While I accept that it is unrealistic to expect Choir Teacher to model herself into (I’ll go ahead and say it) the Second Coming of Scandal-ridden Choir teacher removed in disgrace redacted, I feel that it is important that this culture clash be brought out into the open, and acknowledged by all interested parties. And it is important that how the Chamber Choir proceeds from here be a collaborative effort between Choir Teacher and the students who have worked so hard to earn the right to call themselves the redacted High School Chamber Choir. Only in this manner can I see any hope for long-term relevance of the program.

When I first wrote this, I showed it to my daughter, and she asked me to wait to send it to you. This was to give her a chance to speak with Choir Teacher and try to confirm or clarify the information about Choir Teacher’s plans to augment the Chamber Choir with personnel from the Mixed Choir. The unexpected day off last week prevented this, so I am sending it without having received any clarification on that point.

There are other issues that have come up since last week, and I would like to raise them here. The first is that Choir Teacher has been very slow in bringing a choreographer in to work with the singers. It’s my understanding that on Thursday she announced that the choreographer would be coming to the school on Monday, but this did not happen. Considering the truncated nature of so many other aspects of preparing for the Holiday concert, this is looking like another area where we need to be concerned about meeting the performance standards that are expected of the Choir program.

The other thing touches on the point made above, regarding the “elite” status of the Chamber Choir. Over the weekend, my daughter spoke about this. Her sense is that the “elite/exclusive/exclusionary” atmosphere that forms the basis for the Chamber Choir’s outstanding quality is perceived by higher powers in the District’s chain of command as the root cause of the unfortunate incident of this past summer (in the sense that maintaining that atmosphere necessarily caused the teacher to engage in “favoritism” towards the Choir). She is also concerned that what we have been seeing as declining expectations and standards for the Chamber Choir have been deliberately introduced, apparently on the theory that the goal of utmost importance, to which all other goals are subservient, is eliminating the risk that an atmosphere of favoritism will lead to a similar incident in the future (and that losing the outstanding quality of the Choir is an acceptable price to pay for that goal).

I would like to be able to reassure my daughter that her analysis does not hold water, but in order to so do, I’d need to be able to explain why, and right now, her analysis strikes me as at least plausible. So if you can reassure me that it is not the case, I’d be grateful. It might also be helpful for this to be discussed with the students. If her analysis should happen to be on the money, of course, that also needs to be brought into the open, so people can make informed decisions about their participation in the Choir (and so I can know that I need to fight against that kind of decision-making process at the level of the District).

I welcome your thoughts, and look forward to knowing what action you are prepared to take in response to what I have written. I will be happy to hear from you either through email or by a telephone call to redacted.

Very Truly Yours,

Kaylasdad99

tl:dr

Seriously.

Seconded. The first thing I did was scroll down to see how long it is, at which point I decided I didn’t want to wade through the whole thing.

If you’ve just got a few discussion points to get across, be more succinct; get your points across early, and be done with it. If you really have a lot to talk about, it might be better to just call, make an appointment, and see the principal in person.

I think you’d have better luck if the letter was more concise. I got the gist of it, but there seemed to be a lot of unnecessary verbiage. Unless I missed something, it distills down to choir members who worked hard to become part of the Chamber Choir feel like their efforts were for nothing and they don’t think the teacher is as committed to their group as they are. You want the principal to know that the kids (and you) are upset about it and would like it to be addressed. Does that sum it up?

I like short and sweet and to the point, and this letter ain’t. Just my 2¢.

Agree

Needs to be much more concise – it would be taken more seriously if it were succinct and clearly to-the-point.

Also, it should probably have roughly one less reference to Major League Baseball’s “Designated Hitter Rule.”

I’d leave out the stuff about the movie. It’s about the teacher breaking a promise for the after school rehearsal and other stuff the teacher is doing.

Your political affiliation, wrongheaded and misguided as it obviously is, is utterly irrelevant to this conversation. Your choice to include a strained reference to the designated hitter rule pretty much places the entire letter in the looney toons folder.

I’d throw that letter away, and start by calling the choir teacher to voice your concerns. If that doesn’t produce satisfactory results, you can try contacting the principal, but you need to do it in a more professional and coherent manner. This letter just rambles on and on without really saying much.

So, you will sign your actual name on this letter, right? Because anonymous letters go directly to the trash can. Other than that, TL;DR.

I semi-read this and I have absolutely no idea what your complaint is.

It’s already been sent.

Also, it’s a follow-up to concerns that my wife and I had already raised in a face-to-face with the principal. He’s familiar with my style.

And does the Designated Hitter Rule still exist? As long as it does, it’s NEVER inappropriate to mention that it needs to be done away with. I’ll concede that it might also not be inappropriate to not bring it up.

Why are you dragging in politics into what is a school problem?

For what’s more, why are you writing this letter in the first place? What is the problem? That the choir teacher isn’t following through on what she promised the kids? Why can’t your daughter and the other students who feel the same way bring it up with the principal? Wouldn’t it be more meaningful if “kid and her friends/fellow choir members with grievances bring them up to the appropriate person [head of music department/principal/dean/whoever] with support from parents if necessary” than “parent writes letter to principal, is dismissed as lunatic and letter thrown away, nothing happens?”

Way, way, way too long. I’d set up an appointment wtih him and discuss it. I wouldn’t send a letter.

Yikes. I was going to strongly advise you not to send that letter as-is, and then read that you’d already sent it. Good luck with that. It’s about six paragraphs too long and IMO it is really inappropriate to mention your political leanings in a message like this. The baseball stuff, while less inappropriate, is also totally irrelevant. I gotta say, were I a school principal who received a letter this long and rambling, my main reaction would be, “Oh my god, are you for real with this?”

On preview, I see that the letter has been sent. Well, I’ll post this anyway.

This would be my suggestion. As it is, you don’t know why the teacher is doing what he or she is doing–you’re just going over his or her head, without giving the teacher a chance to address your concerns. There may well be a good reason for the approach the teacher is taking (or there may not be), but you don’t know which is the case yet. Speak with the teacher first.

Agreed. Any letter needs to be much shorter, and address only the key point: you are concerned that the approach the new choir teacher is taking will result in the choir not performing up to their usual standard. That’s it; from my review of your letter, I think that’s the gist of what you’re saying. Finish up with a stronger “call to action” on the principal’s part–you might say that you will call his or her office within the week to set up a appointment at which you will voice your concerns in person. Note that this may even elicit a phone call from the principal, which would be just as good.

But as it is, it seems to me that you’re blowing off steam with the proposed letter. I don’t really see what you expect the principal to do; and certainly, the political reference and the baseball allusion do not belong. So now that you’ve blown off a little steam, my suggestion would be get in touch with the teacher first; and if that does not produce desired results, go back and draft something much shorter and to the point.

Instead of sending the letter, why didn’t you just go and visit the principal. Face to face discussions are better.

Thirded. I read the first paragraph, then someone was talking to me while I was reading the second and I scrolled down and realized I wasn’t going to make it though the rest.

Of course, the person it’s addressed to might be more interested in it, but I didn’t make it through the whole thing, it seemed far to wordy/flowery. Like a Kevin Smith script. [Grabs a random line]
“Part of what has always made membership in the Chamber Choir a desirable thing is the exclusive group activities that Chamber Choir singers enjoy together.” I didn’t make it that far and don’t know what the context was around it, but it seems like that could have been turned into something much shorter…and with more pronouns.

Yikes. If I were the principal and I’d been considering ending the Chamber Choir, this letter would go a long way toward giving me resolve in doing so. A public school (assuming that’s where your kid is) is not a place for an elite, exclusionary singing group to form. It’s not the government’s responsibility to encourage such an exclusionary group. Instead, it’s the government’s responsibility, in its schools, to give students the opportunity to explore different hobbies and subjects.

It’s great for kids to be in a top-notch program, sure. But for something like choir, it makes more sense to make it a program open to everyone, not one that achieves its excellence at the cost of denying opportunities to other kids.

It’s also possible that if your letter spent less time talking about how your daughter is part of the elite, I’d be less repulsed by it. There may be a way to phrase the letter such that you focus on educational opportunities (e.g., by talking about the advanced techniques that may be explored when all students have mastered the basics), and if you can figure that out, I encourage you to do so.

But as is, I find the letter really off-putting.

Is this an after school activity, or part of the regular school curriculum?

I started reading the letter, but it was so long I couldn’t figure out what exactly your complaint was.

How it is any different from a sports team? Or an academic team? Kids try out for those just like they do for this Chamber Choir thing. Some kids make the team, some don’t. Of those that do make the team, some are starters and some ride the bench.