The SM East Symphonic and Concert bands will perform at the State Large Group Festival on April 16. The bands have each prepared two pieces and worked with clinicians, guest musical professionals brought in to improve the performance quality, in hopes of receiving a five rating — the highest score from the judges.
“[It’s] like our music state assessment,” Symphonic Band Director Alex Topefer said. “We compare [our performance] to our state music standards, and then we come up with a performance, and then we get judged and rated, adjudicated.”
This year the clinicians were Joe Parisi from UMKC, who worked with the Symphonic Band, and former SM Northwest band director Penny Snead, who worked with the Concert Band. Both clinicians attended the band concert on March 30 to take notes on the performances, and then came to SM East the following day to fine-tune the pieces in class.
“I think it’s especially [helpful] because beforehand, it's always us and our band directors, and having an expert give an outside perspective is really good because he can pick up on things that we might have glossed over because we're so familiar with the piece,” senior and symphonic band member Eli Moon said.
The preparation in the weeks leading up to the festival can be stressful, according to senior and principal chair of the Symphonic Band Andrew Bennett. However, the directors and band members enjoy listening to other bands from the area perform their finest music. The Large Group Festival is both a contest and learning experience.
“[When they perform] it gives them that emotional feeling of not just performing well, but performing musically,” assistant band director Eric Starnes said. “Watching the kids' reactions to what is usually one of their best performances of the year because of all of the preparations [is very rewarding].”
Seniors will have the opportunity to do service work during a carnival-style Senior Service Seminar. The event, planned by SHARE directors and execs, will take place on the football field during the 90-minute seminar block period on tomorrow, April 14.
Senior Service Day, a SM East tradition in which groups of seniors would leave campus to volunteer at non-profit organizations around the KC area, has now been changed to Senior Service Seminar due to the discontinuation of National Testing Day by President Donald Trump. Seniors had the opportunity to miss their classes and volunteer while freshmen, sophomores and juniors were required to take standardized tests.
Seniors used to volunteer at one organization all day, but this year, the field will be divided into six different color zones with multiple stations, allowing seniors to volunteer for different service projects.
“We have an area called civic engagement where you can register to be a bone marrow donor or register to vote,” SHARE Director Sheryl Kaplan said. “We have a carnival game area where we're going to have different games, like a fishing pond, where they throw a little magnetic rod and pull out a fish [that] has an act of kindness on it that they can go do.”
Current SHARE execs and SHARE directors, Erin Billingsley and Kaplan, have designed the atmosphere of the service seminar to be carnival-themed. There will be hands-on volunteering, such as packing birthday boxes for Harvesters, and games, such as Go Fish, where each fish will have a different act of kindness for students to do.
“It's an accessible way to get people involved, because there are people who just haven't had the interest to or wanted to put in the work [to volunteer],” Wissel said. “It’s their last chance to be able to use [SHARE’s] resources.”
Kaplan and Billingsley have been reaching out to numerous non-profit organizations over the past few weeks to have a variety of tables in each color zone at the event. Any senior who visits all the color zones is awarded one Chick-fil-A sandwich, and the directors and execs have also planned for numerous food trucks to be set up on the field.
“It'll be fun to see people just relaxing, having fun and giving back,” Billingsley said. “We've done several seminars that are school-wide, and they have had a really good turnout, so I'm looking forward to seeing that on a larger scale.”
The 64th annual SMSD Research and Development Forum will begin on April 20 at the Center for Academic Achievement, showcasing a variety of student work and performances ranging from advanced welding creations to elementary school choirs. Three open houses will be held on April 22, 23 and 24 from 4-7 p.m., with an awards ceremony at 2 p.m. on April 25, concluding the event.
“[The forum is] celebration of learning,” Joanna Roche, District Coordinator of Elementary Math and Science, said. “It's about kids going to school all year long, and here are the great products that come from that and they're each unique.”
What was once a small science fair funded by the Regniers, a philanthropic family of SMSD graduates, now has an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 student entries from the combined 35 artistic categories, according to SMSD Director of Assessment and Research at the CAA Dan Gruman. The event has also expanded to include the Next Great Pitch Competition, which was started five years ago as an opportunity for students to compete with their innovations and solutions to real-world problems.
“At the end of [the] live pitch[es], we’ll open up an opportunity for the public at large to vote for their People's Choice winner,” District Chief of Strategic Initiatives Leigh Anne Neal said. “They're solving some kind of problem to better their community, or better something about their world, and it certainly has that civic and global contributor piece.”
The selected finalists for the contest will present their projects at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning at the CAA, but it will also be livestreamed through the SMSD website. Judges will give out awards for the Next Great Pitch contest and awards to the students who choose to enter their artwork into the showcase contest, at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Family, friends, students and educators alike are encouraged to attend the forum to view students' exemplary work.
“Once we get to the open houses, we start seeing parents and students and patrons come through to see what's here, and it's really fun to see people's reactions and engagement with student work,” Gruman said.
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