National Anthem Project Day 2005
Teacher Testimonials

—In Miami, ''When you talk about heritage, most of my students refer to where their families are from,'' says Peter Muller the Miami Springs Senior High School Band Director. "The kids look at their own heritage first.'' Securing Peter's students as performers at the National Anthem Project Launch at Miami City Hall was a major feat, statewide testing and other curriculum requirements are taking precedence. The school's principal keeps student's FCAT scores as a serious priority. Something of a conundrum is a fact that statistics show music improves test scores, but to even be in MSSH's band or chorus elective, you have to have done well in FCAT testing before you enter the program. It is also concerning to note that although FCAT test scores have gone up at MSSH, enrollment in the music program has decreased.” Finally, 25 students were allowed to perform at the event. (Also covered by the Miami Herald)

—In Pinewood, SC, teacher Linda Beck had 250 students wearing red, white and blue. The city, county council, and mayor made proclamations and they had Bill Pinkney, one of the original Drifters sing “America.”

—In Tinley, IL, teacher Christine Eubank led their 9/14 event with all 800+ students. The students made a human flag using construction paper in the parking lot. After the celebration of the anthem, each student returned to class and wrote a letter or card to send to cheer victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

—Teacher Carolyn Freitag teaches three year olds. In addition to the Star Spangled Banner, she also taught the children God Bless America, Grand Old Flag, America the Beautiful and This Land is Your Land (every verse). She says, “It was amazing how quickly the children learned the songs and what a sight to behold. I had quite a cultural mix in my class. Many of the children spoke their native language at home and spoke English only in school. Their parents told me that the children came home and taught them the songs. The whole experience really made me proud to be an American.”

—“My name is Todd Stalter, and I'm the Director of Bands at Eureka High School in Eureka, IL. On Tuesday, March 8th, our boy's basketball team competed in the Illinois High School Association's Supersectional game at Redbird Arena on the campus of Illinois State University. This winner of this game becomes an Elite 8 team and plays for the Class A State Championship in Peoria. Prior to the game the public address announcer asked for the audience to stand for the National Anthem. The crowd waited for the anthem to start, but there was only silence. After a few moments of anticipation, the announcer said that due to technical difficulties there would be no performance of the National Anthem. The crowd groaned and began to get agitated, but all of sudden a group of our students in the student section began to sing the anthem loud and strong, and before long the entire stadium was singing along. The applause afterwards was energetic and enthusiastic, and many people were moved by this spontaneous outpouring of national pride and respect.”

—Teacher Judy Schnebly from St. Joseph, MI writes, “I want to thank you for the certificate for St. Joseph High School's participation in the National Anthem Project. We are very proud to have been a part of the project. The High School Choirs have been singing the anthem for girls basketball games for a number of years and we have had various special request throughout the years. However, since combining the high school, middle school, and elementary students on "Project Day", we have been overwhelmed with requests for "anthem singers". We have been busy singing for various sporting events and community activities. We are hoping we can repeat our "combined choir" for boys basketball season.

—Ridgecrest, CA’s Murray Middle School held a National Anthem Project celebration that also included Francis Scot Key’s great, great, great, great grandson as their honored guest.

—Bradley A Thew, Viroqua WI was one of the Project’s first supporters. He made it the district-wide music goal to participate in the project. They have performed at local sporting events including a district hockey match and have received much community support and pride in the project. They also have done trivia contests and incentives for learning the song’s history as well as being able to sing it.

—Alice Young, music teacher at two rural schools in PA, incorporated the project into their back-to-school night to include not just the students, but also the parents and other community leaders. The principal was also involved and they got such a good response they will continue to incorporate it into future back-to-school nights.

—“I am at Melissa Manning Elementary School in Greenville, MS. I dressed my students in red, white and blue hats. Gave them the same color stringing banners and gathered them around the flagpole in front of the school where they sang the National Anthem and they were televised by our local television station channel 15. It makes me appreciate teaching music and integrating the arts in the school system. Thank you for the idea of this celebration. I look forward to next year being a bigger and better celebration.”

—“I wanted to share our contribution to National Anthem Day. The local Tri-M chapter at our school plus the chorus and band created a video that was viewed by all classrooms (tv's in each class) that morning. We were just beginning a focus on American heritage and we started the week of activities with our video…It was a great success and everyone in the entire school (850 students and 67 faculty and staff) sang or honored the national anthem of our country together that morning. The finished product was polished and something that our music students felt proudly represented them. It isn't often that they get positive feedback from the whole student body...it was a good feeling for them to be acknowledged for their musical achievements.” (Patti Fulk, Surry Central High School/Choral Educator)

—“This morning two of our classes at the West Tennessee School for the Deaf gathered around our flag pole and sang/signed the National Anthem. We have been practicing for more than two weeks. We have used the words for speech and phonemic awareness, and talked about why the song is important to our country. It has exposed the children to new vocabulary and signs. We videotaped them this morning, and I wondered if your project might like a copy. We'd be happy to share. They were very proud of themselves. It was a great experience for all of us. (Charray Johnson, West Tennessee School for the Deaf)

—“Here at North Broward Preparatory School at Coral Springs, we began the year by making the students, teachers and administrators aware of the "National Anthem Project" through an interactive bulletin board that featured photos of the kick-off celebration, song lyrics (including "take one" mini-copies), a "Did You Know?" trivia section, and much more.
     Next, the "Star Spangled Banner Challenge" was issued by the Music teacher. Any student, teacher or administrator who can sing the anthem from memory has had their name added to a "star" on the National Anthem Project bulletin board. This will be an ongoing challenge throughout the school year, with the goal being full-school participation.
     To promote class unity, any classes that have had their entire student roster, including the teacher, meet the challenge of singing the anthem receive red, white and blue bookmarks that read "You are the music STARS of the future!"
     On the morning of September 14th, the day of the nation-wide sing-a-long, two students read a brief history of Francis Scott Key and the writing of his famous poem, and read the lyrics of the poem aloud over the school intercom system. Then all students were asked to stand and sing the anthem together. That same evening, all three campuses of our school (PK-12) hosted a community concert called "Salute To America" which paid tribute to our veterans and featured performances by all ages (3 choruses, jazz band, concert band, orchestra, drum line, flag corps, drama, art) including, of course, The Star Spangled Banner!

We have noticed that when singing the anthem at school assemblies, the enthusiasm and student participation has been remarkably improved! Thanks to MENC for sponsoring this much-needed boost for our nation's cherished song!

—“I work at two Indian reservation schools. For each school we formed a human flag, by having the children in grades K-8 and HS Choir wear assigned red, white or blue shirts. The little ones wore the blue and then wore blue construction paper hats with a star on the front. We formed our 13 rows in the gym and then sang the Star Spangled Banner. A couple of HS girls sang an additional verse for us. The local TV station came and did a story on us. They asked if we would make this an annual event. Maybe we will. I was amazed that so many kids showed up with the right color of shirt that day! It was pretty cool!” Dianna Spirk, Winnebago Public and Walthill Public in northeast Nebraska.

—“I know this is late, but at Dover Intermediate School, Dover, PA, we had a special assembly on September 14th. We had all of the 7th and 8th graders who attend the school (about 600) come to the auditorium. I read a brief history on the National Anthem and the significance of the day, we sang the National Anthem as an entire school (with words and pictures on power point), said the pledge of Allegiance as a school and the band director read the poem "Old Ragged Flag." I was wondering if we could still get the certificate. The administration and entire faculty loved it and saw it as extremely worthwhile. We are planning to do something every year, with many faculty volunteering additional ideas and participation.” (Andrew Apgar)

—We had two assemblies today to honor the Constitution. The ROTC unit posted the colors then we did the pledge. We had a flag folding demonstration with an explanation of what every fold represented. We passed out the words to the student body for the Star Spangled Banner and let the students sing it along with the band. The student government gave a special ribbon to every student who had a family member serving in the Armed Forces who were deployed. We had a slide show with the band playing background music and a narrator who described the meaning of the "Bill of Rights". The chorus sang a song entitled "We the People". IT was well received by the student body. Everyone learned to appreciate our liberty and gained a better understanding of our freedom from being there. (Johnny Nash, Discovery Middle School, Alabama)

—Good Afternoon: I am music teacher at Yates Primary School (gr. K-2), Cleveland City Schools, Cleveland, Tennessee. The students at Yates and sister school, E.L. Ross Elementary (Gr. 3-5), participated in Star-Spangled Banner Day Wednesday, September 14, 2005. Over 800 students as well as teachers and parents wore red-white-blue, carried flags, and paraded between the two schools to our flagpole where we recited "Pledge Allegiance to the Flag" and sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." We did so at 9:00 AM, as was suggested in the national project.
     My students here at Yates prepared for the presentation by studying the history of writing the song, Francis Scott Key, and learned about the vocabulary in the song. Students were asked to take home a booklet about FS Key and the words of the first verse to share with family, in an effort for all to learn the words. Since march music is used for a parade, we also studied John Phillip Sousa and march music; we are following up by learning about brass instruments.
     It is my hope participation in this event will focus attention on the importance of the music program in our schools. I learned as we were preparing that I am losing my music classroom. I will be teaching on a cart beginning next week. This is another sign of the loss of support by our school administration and I hope our jobs are not the next to go. (Wain Weaver, Cleveland, TN)

—We had a great time with the Nat'l Anthem Day at Hershey School. Had a short presentation in the morning with some interesting facts about the song, flag, patriotism, etc. Then added some personal excerpts from students for when they had seen the flag and Nat'l Anthem sung that really, really impressed them. It was a K-12 assembly and even had some parents there! They all joined in singing at the end and it was awesome. Before yesterday, I'd also had my jr. high students take polls of 10 people each to see how many knew the song. Amazingly, most of them came back with 75% of the people knowing it. And the best one was that my 6th graders had gotten into trouble one day so instead of giving them detention, etc., they had to sing the Nat'l Anthem to 3 people outside their class over the weekend. The responses were great and funny! I actually think they enjoyed that! Thanks for keeping this going! (Teresa Rotert, Hershey, NE)

The students were so excited to see and hear history come alive for them. Our administration was happy to see students so into the history of how the Star-Spangled Banner came to be. I wish you could have seen their faces. Thank you so much for this experience.

—Here at Emporia High School, I direct 5 choirs. Each choir reviewed the Star Spangled Banner melody and words for a week. We are culturally diverse and many of my freshmen don't know the Star Spangled Banner words, as they are from other countries. My top group, Viva Voce learns the SSB each year and performs it for various sporting events. I put the words to the SSB in all the teachers' mailboxes the day before and then on Sept. 14 Viva Voce sang the Star Spangled Banner during the school announcements. We invited the whole school to sing along (1500+ students) in their classrooms. I also allowed students in my freshmen choirs to bring the national anthems from their country to choir and we learned theirs as well. We sang German, Vietnamese, Mexican, etc. It was a great cultural exchange! (Sheree' Stoppel, director of choirs, Emporia High School, Emporia Kansas)

—“The students were so excited to see and hear history come alive for them. Our administration was happy to see students so into the history of how the Star-Spangled Banner came to be. I wish you could have seen their faces. Thank you so much for this experience.” (Sandra Kubler, teacher of gifted, Symmes and Kingswood, Florida)

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