{"id":726,"date":"2014-09-04T12:58:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T16:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=726"},"modified":"2014-09-04T13:23:44","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T17:23:44","slug":"angst-over-bmhs-marching-band-noise-agreement-as-parent-meeting-planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2014\/09\/angst-over-bmhs-marching-band-noise-agreement-as-parent-meeting-planned\/","title":{"rendered":"Angst Over BMHS Marching Band ‘Noise’ Agreement As Parent Meeting Planned"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Brick Memorial Marching Mustangs band. (Photo: Brick Memorial Marching Mustangs)<\/p><\/div>\n

An agreement between the Brick Township school district and neighbors of Brick Memorial High School over a noise complaint against the high school\u2019s marching band<\/a> has ruffled feathers with a number of band parents, but district officials say they are planning a parent meeting to address issues of miscommunication.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody, from the band\u2019s point of view, was talked to,\u201d said Joe Zurlo, who has a child in the band. \u201cIt was just, \u2018here it is, that\u2019s that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After the agreement between the district and neighbors was announced yesterday, band parents criticized officials for what they thought was a plan to have the band practice on the high school\u2019s baseball field. But Superintendent Dr. Walter Uszenski said the band will never have to practice on the baseball field at all.<\/p>\n

Parents who spoke with Shorebeat on Thursday said practicing on the baseball field could be dangerous because of a lack of lights and the fact that the pitcher\u2019s mound and other surfaces are uneven. On Wednesday, Mayor John Ducey told Shorebeat the baseball field was one of the places the band would practice.<\/p>\n

Uszenski said, however, that the agreement forged with \u201cone or two\u201d neighbors who have complained for many years about the sound of the band, does not require students to march on the baseball field. Instead, he said, the band can use two parking lots at Brick Memorial as well as the football field when it is available.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never, ever said they had to go to the baseball field,\u201d said Uszenski. \u201cIt was an option that was thrown out there last year, but the band director told us that it wouldn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uszenski said he and other district officials will call a meeting with band parents to explain the situation in depth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to ask for a parent meeting so the administration can speak directly with the parents,\u201d he said. \u201cThe agreement [with neighbors] worked last year, and I don\u2019t know why it can\u2019t work this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Uszenski said, the agreement held that the band could use the football field or either parking lot for practice. The biggest complaint from neighbors were the snare drums, which then-principal Dr. Richard Caldes said could sometimes reverberate off the walls of the school and become amplified. The drummers then began practicing toward the front of the school, Uszenski explained, and \u201cI never got any more complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of the complaining neighbors was met with widespread regional media coverage Thursday, including an incident on New Jersey 101.5 radio Thursday morning where a host gave out Ducey\u2019s phone number, prompting the mayor to call in. On the show, Ducey said the school district could come to the township council to request the governing body exempt the band from the township\u2019s noise ordinance, effectively nullifying any complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a call into the mayor on the noise ordinance,\u201d said Uszenski. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t gotten back to me yet, but I absolutely want to discuss that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parents of band members say their top priority is preserving the stellar reputation of the Marching Mustangs band, which includes about 90 young musicians and is considered one of the elite high school bands in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking for is to protect the band program, which has been in existence for 30 years,\u201d said Zurlo. \u201cIt\u2019s a family, and they all look after one another. When I hear one or two complaining about something, it makes no sense. It\u2019s not noise, it\u2019s music. Get your priorities in order.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An agreement between the Brick Township school district and neighbors of Brick Memorial High School over a noise complaint against the high school\u2019s marching band has ruffled feathers with a number of band parents, but district officials say they are planning a parent meeting to address issues of miscommunication. \u201cNobody, from the band\u2019s point of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[211,210,24,212],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-bmhs","tag-brick-memorial-high-school","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-marching-band"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Screen-Shot-2014-09-04-at-12.56.45-PM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-bI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}