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Show A community newspaper serving residents and businesses on the west side of Salt Lake City Issue No. 17 | FEBRUARY 2005 undraising for Jac son Elementary iolin Program - a Recurring Theme Education launched the program as a three-year experiment. A renewal of the grant bought another three years, and an anonymous donor kept it going for two more. Since then, it has been an ongoing strug- gle. S Principal disappointed 6th grade Jackson Elementary students (from left to right) TJ. Rector Gharie Mai, Andrew Watkins, and Esteban Molina perform in last year's Spring Concert under the direction of Trish Wade. Photo by Linnette Brenkmann the piper. kindergarten to second-grade start By Norma Hendrickson In 1992, opera singer Michael by singing and using rhythm instruBallam persuaded state and local ments. In third-grade, they get vio_ Jackson Elementary students school leaders to start the innovalins and play by ear. By fourthhave been playing their violins for tive program. The full program, grade they are reading notes as they 12 years now. A unique program at with two full-time teachers instructplay. While students play “Pomp their school makes music a regular ing every student in the school, and Circumstance” and Pachelbel’s part of the curriculum for all stucosts about $40,000 per year. A “Canon,” administrators play dents, regardless of their talent or detective oakine for ways to pay grant from the Utah State Office of family’ S income. _ Students in Shawna Wilde was this year when the Fundraising is a continuous process. The school and its program have many advocates and promoters, but never enough money. Contributions to save the program have come ways and amounts. Symphony musicians in various The Utah often play with the children. In the spring of school could no longer fund music 2003, the Symphony waived the rental fee for Abravanel Hall and for kindergarten and first-grade stuthe students raised $17,000 28 dents. She believes funding will be found to restore it again next year, ° forming there. A humanitarian organization, but there are no long-term guaranInto the West, sponsored a gala tees. before the Utah Symphony’s “Lord Measuring the success of culof the Rings” performance last fall. tural programs can be difficult, but The event put another $3,000 in the the results at Jackson have been school’s music fund. | encouraging. The school’s website The parents and the community states that after the first three years, have also made a commitment to students surveyed said they felt help with fundraising. A PTA carnimore connected to the school, val last fall raised $1,400, and all severe discipline problems were proceeds went to the music prodown, and parents began attending gram. Wilde was impressed with not only the students’ performancthis effort and called the results es, but parent-teacher conferences incredible given the financial strugas well. gles of many local families. She One of the music teachers, said the school welcomes donaCarol Storrs, saw the success in a tions of any size. “We try to find more personal way. She remembers many contributors who can give that during the first year of the pro$100,” says Wilde. gram a child got hurt on the playground. When parents came to retrieve the bleeding child he said, “No, I don’t want to go‘home yet. I have violi Wilde lauds the program and the school itself. She believes the See Violin on page 2 Film Subjects and West Side é chousiag Residents Find Common By Charlotte Fife-Jepperson While hoards of film goers flocked to the - Sundance Film Festival in Park City during _ January, a group of Glendale residents from Wasatch Commons Cohousing were invited Bear bought land deep in the ee and created a rough-hewn homestead. Over the years, hundreds have joined the community, and life has been complicated by conflicts about the role of women, child-rear- ing, “proper” communalist behavior, the FBI, and most traumatically, a child- -snatchby film makers to the Slamdance Film Festival, one of several alternative independ- — ing cult. With archival footage from the early ent film festivals in Utah. West side cohousing members watched a days, and the present-day views of Black documentary called “Commune” about the Black Bear Commune, which was established in 1968 on 80 acres of isolated wilderness in Siskiyou County, California. Bear members and _ their children, “Commune” offers a reminiscence of a few ex-members’ experiences and explores the social aspects of communal living, including Black Bear Commune was just one of many utopian communities that dotted the the undefined nature of relationships, the dis‘tribution of chores; the spirit of co-operation, North American landscape in the early ‘70s. jealousy, and frustrations about lack of priva- Jt was a radical experiment in living, where members, in rejection of their conservative, conventional “50s upbringing, aimed to _ reshape the world with “free love” and comPremised solely on the idea of “Free Land for Free People,’ and financed by Hollywood rock stars, the founders of Black | cy, etc. Although Wasatch Commons is not a commune, it shares with Black Bear some of the same progressive philosophies about life and community. mon property. Ground— Wasatch Commons. resi- dents share common meals and go out of their way to cooperate in their daily lives. See Commune on page 2 Wasatch Commons resident Mike Angelastro plays guitar with Cedar Seeger, former member of the Black Bear Commune and one of many film subjects in the documentary "Commune" that was screened in the Slamdance Film _ Festival. Photo by Vicky Wason |
