COVID-19 takes toll on student performance groups

Around this time each year, the choral and band groups at Liberty Park Middle School are preparing for winter concerts and performances, where excited parents and members of the public will enjoy their music.

This year, COVID-19 has made that impossible.

“I think that’s been a challenge as far as keeping kids motivated to working toward our goals,” said Jody Bryant, the school’s band director.

Heather Cantwell teaches choir at the school.

“It’s just kind of been a bummer,” she said.

With 160 total singers — and 60 in the sixth grade alone, Cantwell said it is hard directing choirs that have to wear masks and sit 6 feet apart. Singers can’t hear each other well and can only sing for 15 minutes at a time, she said. Studies have shown that singing poses a greater risk for transmission of the virus.

Still, Cantwell said she’s working hard to keep kids positive and excited.

“They’re timid anyway in middle school,” Cantwell said. “We’re just doing the best we can do.”

The bands struggle to hear themselves, too, Bryant said. That hurts, especially with beginning players, as hearing one another helps create more consistency and a better overall performance.

“They’re trying their absolute best,” Bryant said.

The band also is having to use special masks that cover students’ instruments in order to cut down on possible virus spread, he said.

“Those are less than ideal,” he said.

They also affect the ability of the student to breathe as deeply, he said. And with their faces covered, it keeps Bryant from providing feedback based on what he’s seeing, which is especially critical with beginning students, he said.

“I can’t see the mouth formation,” Bryant said.

The one positive to that is that it is, in some ways, making him a better teacher, He said. He is relying on what he hears, not sees, but, still, it leaves him “playing the guessing game” in some cases, he said.

Bryant and Cantwell both said they worry about student retention and future recruitment into their respective programs.

“I just pray every day that it doesn’t hurt it,” Cantwell said.

Bryant said it’s a worry for him, and he also worries about students who are learning virtually at home because it’s hard to lead a band virtually.

“We’re a performance-based group,” Bryant said.

He worries about the impact on the quality and size of the program and said they’ve lost about 20 kids to remote learning and had some drop out.

Still, it isn’t all bad news. Cantwell said she’s working on possibly putting together a virtual concert. Bryant said he is teaching his students to be thankful that they can come together and play at all.

“We are going to try and be thankful for opportunities we do have and not dwell on the ones we don’t have,” Bryant said.

The future for everyone in these times is unknown, but Bryant said he is focusing on helping the kids he does have and helping them navigate these unprecedented times.

“As of right now, I’m taking it one day at a time,” Bryant said. “This year has not been so much about teaching music education, but to provide these kids with a positive experience within their school day … under these circumstances.”

Students are under a tremendous amount of stress, and Bryant said he wants to help them find a “normal space.”

“This is something none of us have really faced in our lifetime.”