School House Symphony
P.O. Box 35494
Cincinnati, OH 45236
Teaching Tomorrow's Audience Today
Grant Application:
School House Symphony presents imaginative multicultural music education programs to pre-school and elementary age children throughout the greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. These programs feature performances and discussions of music from different cultures and periods of time, including folk, jazz, classical, and popular music. SHS would like to request $30,000. These funds would be used for operating support, to continue a Dater Foundation funded project begun in the 2011-2012 season of providing free programs to the entire student body of the ten CISE (Catholic Inner-city) schools, and to present programs for schools interested in receiving SHS programs but are unable to afford them. Operating support, which is increasingly harder to find, is vital to keeping SHS rates affordable. Due to the generous support from organizations such as the Charles H. Dater Foundation, SHS has been able to keep rates unchanged for over a decade! For the last two seasons SHS has had to deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our schools. All performances in the 2020-2021 season was entirely virtual. In our 2021-2022 season we were able to once again return to in-school performances, but the season started very slowly with most schools unwilling to sign up for SHS programming until school had already resumed. For the 2022-2023 season, SHS is to be returning to pre-Covid early registration levels and schools that did not have SHS programs last season due to no visitor policies are also registering.
Goals/Objectives:
There were several goals in this grant proposal. SHS hoped to be able to get close to pre-pandemic performance numbers (250 plus music education programs to over 60 different Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky schools), keeping subscription rates affordable to these schools. The second was to provide SHS programs to all of the ten Cincinnati C.I.S.E schools (Catholic Inner-city Schools Education) free of charge to the schools.
Finally, SHS received additional funds to help schools with financial need who were unable to afford SHS programming, and for schools who are receiving SHS programs but are unable to afford a complete series of programs.
Grant Evaluation Report:
School House Symphony continued its tradition of providing in-school, high quality, music education performances during our 2022-2023 season and has returned to the up close, interactive, and small student group format that was so difficult the past few years. Prior to the pandemic, many schools continued to be challenged in finding funding for arts related programs, and for many the Covid-19 pandemic has made the situation even more difficult. Despite these challenges SHS was able to perform 235 programs in area schools this season!
Support from the Charles H. Dater Foundation has been a vital tool to allow SHS to continue to connect with Cincinnati area school children. Funding from the Dater foundation was vital to School House Symphony operations and to all schools who receive SHS programming. Regardless of the merits of any program, schools are only able to have SHS perform for their school children if it is presented at a price that fits within their budget. Without the generous support of the Charles H. Dater Foundation, far fewer schools would have been able to have SHS as part of their curriculum. For paying schools, School House Symphony has been able to keep subscription rates low and unchanged for the last 15 seasons.
In addition, due to support from the Charles H. Dater Foundation, SHS was able to present programs in 2022-2023 season for the entire student body at Cincinnati CISE schools free of charge. The programs presented this season to the CISE schools focused on teaching the students about the instruments in SHS, how they work, as well as about the different instrument families. The programs at the CISE schools were very well received by both students and staff.
Due to funding from the Charles H. Dater Foundation, SHS was also able to offer in our 2022-2023 season, 50 programs to schools who were unable to afford any SHS programs or to finish a series. The musicians and management of SHS believe that SHS programs should be available all students regardless of their economic circumstances.
Schools receiving these no cost programs are selected based on need (free lunch percentage and test scores) and included visits to Cincinnati Early Learning Centers, and multiple visits to the students at both the Hamilton County Developmental Disability Services and the Warren County Educational Service Center.
The following schools received programs at no cost during the 2022-2023 season:
Academy of World Languages
Bobbie Fairfax School
College Hill Elementary (North College Hill)
Corryville Catholic School
CWFF Avondale
Holy Cross Elementary School
Holy Family Elementary School
Holy Family Elementary School (KY)
Holy Trinity School
Learning Grove-Price Hill
Learning Grove Schiff-Lower Price Hill
Lincoln Elementary
Margaret B. Rost
Pleasant Hill Academy
Prince of Peace Montessori
Romero Academy at Resurrection
St. Anthony School
St. Augustine School
St. Boniface School
St. Francis de Sales School
St. Francis Seraph School
St. Lawrence School
St. Louis School
St. Joseph School
Westwood UMC Preschool
William Mallory ELC
YMCA Early L Center Christ Child
YMCA Early L Center-Valley
Many of these same schools are again scheduled to receive no cost programs in the upcoming 2023-2024 season. SHS also continues to identify and reach out to other schools that meet the no cost criteria.
Website:
http://www.schoolhousesymphony.org Amount: $30,000
Date: June 2022
