Last July, I wrote an op-ed encouraging Portlanders to advocate for restoring music positions in Portland Public Schools. Let’s thank the superintendent and school board for including one new music position in the proposed 2025-2026 budget. And please join me in asking for more.

In my July piece and in remarks to the school board, I reviewed many of the benefits of music study to young brains, including reducing anxiety (according to the National Institutes of Health).

A healthy music program not only provides these benefits, but also supplies students with other viable career paths they can add to their arsenal of choices. There are many professionals in the arts around the country who point to their own public schools’ music programs as the single most important factor in their career-building process.

A few of them are living and working in our midst, including Tracey Jasas-Hardel, who started learning violin in her Toledo, Ohio, elementary school.

She fell in love with music and today Tracey is the violinist of the Portland Piano Trio; co-artistic director and resident faculty member at 240 Strings; and freelance artist who has played with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, Vigorous Tenderness and other renowned groups across the region and country. Tracey has also been a Fulbright recipient, a violinist with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and a member of the U.S. Marine Band Chamber Orchestra.

Some of the careers open to musicians include being a member of a chamber ensemble, performing freelance and teaching, which pay livable wages and, in some cases, salaries. For those who are accepted into a major symphony orchestra, that salary can be six figures. By providing a strong performing arts education, Portland can ensure their students have plenty of viable career options in the full STEAM subject areas, not just the basic core subjects.

We’ve lost a number of music positions over the past two decades, which has affected all our programming. The strings program had three teachers 20 years ago. Today we have just one, over all 15 schools. After 100 years of an orchestra program, Maine’s biggest city and cultural center has just 22 students left in our high school orchestra — across all three high schools — no marching band after Deering’s was cut in 2001, and none of our music teachers have been evaluated in 22 years.

We are lacking equity in programming across schools, because without a supervisory position, each school is on its own for determining staffing, scheduling, etc.

Let’s bring back the crucial addition of a music supervisor position, which could be half-time. This should be someone who will guide the department in articulating and carrying out a mission statement, evaluate staff, oversee hiring and coordinate with the superintendent and school board on the budget to carry out the mission and state-mandated educational priorities. Bringing back this position would create transparency about the music budget, and would go a long way toward creating equity in the performing arts across schools.

Please come to the Feb. 4 school board meeting at 6 p.m. at Casco Bay High School and voice your support for music and the arts. This may be the last public comment session that can positively influence the 2025-2026 budget.