JAMM Expands in Grade Levels and Programming

2nd grade JAMM students perform at Glacier Valley

JAMM is proud to announce the expansion of its program to Auke Bay and Riverbend Elementary Schools in the Juneau School District.  Both sites will start a kindergarten violin program by providing 90 minutes of instruction during school hours throughout the week.
Both schools will adopt a similar model, which utilizes existing school personnel and partners with the community.  Music teacher and kindergarten teacher help with instruction,while learning from Suzuki instructor, Diane Barnett, who received training at Glacier Valley. With half of the Juneau elementary schools participating, over two hundred students will have access to quality music education, early literacy skills and lifelong habits including focus, teamwork and discipline.

In a Juneau Empire article covering the story, Lori Hoover, the principal at Auke Bay, shared the school's reasons for starting at JAMM program next year: 

My big goal is that learning music and learning to appreciate music just helps in the big picture of we we want kids to develop.  If they can focus and learn to play violin that focus extends to all of their academic subjects.  It can be taught in a fun way.  It helps them socialize.  In the big picture, yes, they're learning music, but it's a skill they can continue the rest of their life in reading music.  That's my main thing, we want them to be great students and this is one way kids learn academic skills is through music.

Here is the link to the entire Juneau Empire article.  Thank you, Auke Bay, Glacier Valley and Riverbend Elementary Schools, for making instrumental music a core part of your students' public education.

Staff from Auke Bay and Riverbend Elementary Schools Attend Glacier Valley's Paper Violin Night