BonnerSprings.com

Forty-four students in the Bonner Springs High School Band have more than just presents to look forward to over the Christmas holiday.

The day after Christmas, Dec. 26, they will take off on a five-day field trip to San Antonio. There they will see the sights and get a chance to perform during halftime of the Valero Alamo Bowl, Dec. 29. The students will get to perform with six other high school bands, as well as the bands from the two schools that are competing against each other in the bowl game: the University of Washington and Baylor University.

“They’re very excited,” said Bill Turley, BSHS Band director, who on Tuesday shared news about the trip with the USD 204 Board of Education. “They’re just really excited to go perform with the college bands and be at a big-time bowl game.”

The trip, which was approved by the board during the 2010-2011 school year, is significant in that it will be the first field trip the BSHS Band has taken in 10 years, Turley said. Traditionally, the band had taken a field trip every two years. But due to a high turnover of band directors prior to Turley taking the position four years ago, he said it wasn’t seen as an option until now. Still, he said taking trips to perform outside of the students’ comfort zone was an integral part of the high school band experience, as it exposes them to cultural experiences and gets them in front of new, and unfamiliar, audiences.

“Well, it’s kind of what bands always do,” Turley said.

Board members were more inclined to give their approval for the trip last year knowing it wouldn’t cost the district anything. The trip is being entirely funded by the students themselves, or their parents. Turley said students had either raised the $700 necessary for them to go on the trip through fundraising in the past year or they had received financial help from their parents. With six chaperones — four parents and two teachers — Turley said the trip would cost $35,000. He added there was only $150 of that left to make up by departure time — he said that was because a few students still needed to come up with the rest of their trip fee.

The students and chaperones will travel by bus and will stay at the Hilton San Antonio Airport Hotel. Outside of the halftime performance, rehearsals and a concert band clinic the BSHS Band will take part in at a local high school, the students will have the opportunity to take in San Antonio’s sights. Scheduled stops include the city’s River Walk, the Alamo and the Institute of Texan Cultures, which is a 65,000-square-foot museum.

The most important scheduled stop, of course, will be the halftime performance. But Turley assured the board the students were well prepared.

“The students can already play the music,” he said. “They’ve got it memorized and ready to go.”

Turley said he hoped this wouldn’t be the last trip BSHS Band students would take. In fact, he said, almost as soon as he and the students return Dec. 30, he’ll be tossing around initial trip ideas for 2013.

In other action Tuesday, the board:

• Unanimously approved the adoption of the agenda.

• Unanimously approved the minutes from the Nov. 14 meeting.

• Unanimously approved warrants totaling $160,026.

• Unanimously approved the treasurer and clerk’s reports.

• Unanimously approved the final audit report for the 2009-2010 school year. Joe Glovoke, who presented the report Tuesday, said the only real issue was that the district had spent more in Title I funding that school year than was budgeted. Charles Thomas, the district’s interim business manager, said he believed that was because some teacher salaries had mistakenly been paid out of that fund.

• Unanimously approved authorizing Thomas to further investigate the possibility of the district entering into a contract with Purple Wave Inc., a state-authorized online company through which state agencies can try to auction off no-longer needed equipment. Thomas said some of the items the district could do without included old buses. But board members wanted to know how much the contract amount would be before giving their approval, and Thomas didn’t have that figure available at the board meeting.

• Unanimously approved moving a new Verizon cell tower, which was originally to have been installed near the tennis courts at Bonner Springs High School, to an area behind the bus barn. Superintendent Robert VanMaren said the change was necessary because the city wouldn’t give its approval for the cell tower installation unless it was moved to an area that wasn’t so close to residents’ homes.

• Unanimously approved new contracts for Jessica Laster, Bonner Springs High School math teacher, Scott Lero, BSHS head baseball Rule 10 coach, and Barbara Pretz, special education instructional aide. Board member Tim McGinnis, however, raised concern since a public announcement was made last week by the school regarding Lero’s hiring before the board gave its approval. VanMaren, as well as Ray Cox, board president, agreed that that was a mistake, since it might have led to some “embarrassment” for the district had Lero’s contract not been approved.

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