Bringing Music to the Community
By Beth Dzwil
Music Department
The Community Partnership School is a joint project of Germantown Academy and Project HOME, who work to educate inner-city children with potential by offering them opportunities not traditionally available to low-income children. Their stated objectives are:
- To create a pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade program for talented inner-city children with the intent that they will be eligible to attend selective public, independent, religious and charter middle schools.
- To create a model for similar ventures that will combine thriving independent schools with successful community-based programs to bring opportunity to our youngest children living in low-income urban areas.
- To create a demonstration program accessible to area universities and schools of education that will provide opportunities for graduate-level research on best school practices for inner-city children.
The Community Partnership School (CPS) opened its doors in 2006. Through a chance meeting with Charley Muir, the CPS head of school at the time, I was made aware of their lack of a music program and began to volunteer there part-time, teaching general music while they searched for a music teacher. After their search was successful and they had hired someone to fill this role, I promised myself that I would return and teach these wonderful children how to play the violin, not only for the intellectual benefits of learning an instrument, but to give them a tool for self-expression and community building.
Fast forward three years. In April of 2009, through the generosity of seven individuals who donated violins and the help of Springside School, which loaned us an additional five, enough violins were acquired to begin a Suzuki violin program in the third grade and in July 2009 I accepted the part- time music teacher position vacated by my predecessor. I applied for and received a grant from Musik –Musical Instruments for Kids (a foundation begun by an eighteen-year-old-student) to purchase twelve more violins. This fall we were finally able to begin violin study in the third and fourth grades. George Marques and Laina Martin, two music majors at the Community College of Philadelphia, volunteer their time to assist in these classes. Their help has provided the students of CPS with more individual attention while giving Laina and George hands on experience in music education.
My goals for CPS are to acquire enough instruments to expand the program to include first through fifth grades and to continue to develop ways for CPS to become a greater part of Philadelphia’s educational and musical communities.
For more information about the Community Partnership School : http://www.communitypartnershipschool.org/
To view a news segment by Dawn Timmeney about the music program at CPS recently aired on Channel 10:
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local-beat/A_Brighter_Future_Through_Music_Philadelphia.html
