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WD Music Department Senior Awards

4/22/2020

To all music department seniors,

Once again we are faced with the difficult task of determining the recipients of various awards and honors for graduating music department students. While the criteria for most of these awards are clear cut and well established, others are less defined and pose a perennial dilemma as we try to honor as many deserving students as possible for their varied contributions. In order to assist us, we need a couple of items.
First, all seniors are asked to complete the WD Music Career Summary. We use this information when creating awards plaques. Please double check all info before hitting the submit button!
Second, we ask interested seniors to please take time to indicate, in essay form, what awards you believe you are qualified to receive, and what contributions to the music department you would like us to use and evaluate in reaching our decisions. For your convenience, the awards are listed below with the criteria for each honor. Please submit this data in essay form by the end of the school day (2:06PM) on Friday, May 8, 2020.

All seniors - Complete this form
WD Music Career Summary - For all seniors regardless of applying for scholarship.

Seniors applying for awards/scholarship - Submit scholarship essay here:
WD Music Department Scholarship Essay - For scholarship consideration

Note: If we do not receive anything in writing from you by May 8th, we will assume that you are not interested in being considered for any of the awards listed below. There will be no extensions.

Awards - Description/Criteria

Board of Education Plaque: Instrumental - Number of Courses & GPA

Board of Education Plaque: Vocal - Number of Courses & GPA

John Phillip Sousa Award - Outstanding Instrumental Musicianship

National School Choral Award - Outstanding Vocal Musicianship

Louis Armstrong Jazz Award - Outstanding Jazz Musicianship

West Deptford Band Parent Scholarships - (2) $1000 Scholarships

West Deptford Choir Parent Scholarships - (2) $500 Scholarships

“Onion” Ahn Musician Award
(1) $500 Scholarship – Instrumentalist
(1) $500 Scholarship – Vocalist

Thank you,
Mr. Kershaw & Mr. Yerkes

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CHICAGO UPDATE #2

4/15/2020

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UPDATE ON CURRENT STATUS
Here we are in week 5 of our ongoing national emergency and social distancing. Over the past few weeks, Mr. Yerkes and I have been working on securing our paid deposits and cancelling our trip reservations. These included:

Airfare reservations
Hotel reservation
Coach Bus booking
Rental Truck booking
Wrigley Field Tour
Chicago Symphony performance
Gino’s East Dinner
Wills Tower Experience
Six Flags Great America tickets
Giordano’s Chicago Pizza Dinner
Chicago Lakefront Cruise charter
Museum of Science & Industry admission
Art Institute of Chicago admission
3hr Guided bus tour of Chicago
Hard Rock Café reservation

We are happy to report that all vendors have been supportive and have committed to providing full refunds to us! This is amazing news. However, as you can see there are many different bookings whom each have their own timelines for refunding our payments. The largest deposit was the airfare and they gave us a window of 30 days before our refund would be forwarded. This trip took a year to plan and will take some time to sadly undo.

WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF THIS ON OUR ORGANIZATIONS?
Each band and choir trip is 100% handled in house. We do not hire travel agents or travel companies. Your directors are the travel agents. Why do we do this? By booking trips directly, we save our students hundreds of dollars each trip. The difference is significant and allows some students to be in a better position to attend the trip. It is that simple.

This situation is as large of a disappointment for us as it is for you. We pour hours and hours into planning and managing these experiences because we know they are valuable. It really is the best part of each year and WE DO PLAN TO MOVE FORWARD IN 2021!

We do not expect to lose any funds from any cancellation penalties! This will allow us to move forward with confidence and ensure stability to our organization. Thank you for your support!

The only thing we are asking is for some understanding that we are not at school. There is some information we simply do not have access to remotely. None of this is normal, but please trust that we are doing all we can to ensure a timely resolve to all trip matters.

ACTION NEEDED NOW
To start organizing the management of refunds we are asking everyone to submit the following form to tell us how you would like your payments to be handled. We will need this form completed for EACH TRIP PARTICIPANT. 4 participants = 4 form submissions

The form will ask the following info:

Trip Participant’s First & Last Name
Requested Action (Choose one):

Please apply my current payment balance towards next year's band & choir trip.
Please refund my out-of-pocket payments as soon as possible, when available.

If you requested to have your out-of-pocket payments refunded, to whom would you like the check be made?

CLICK HERE => https://forms.gle/XSFVpaBYAzQ6vorR7

Each individual’s refund will include all cash/check/money order (out-of-pocket) payments and will be issued as a single check from WDHS.

Credit card payments will be refunded to the card holder via check payment minus the service fee (3%).

WDHS MUSIC DEPARTMENT POLICY ON FUNDRAISING CREDITS
Throughout the year the band, band parents or choir parents organizations may provide students with opportunities to earn fundraising credits to help offset costs associated with their involvement. Each fundraiser has a designation as to where the funds will be credited. Some fundraisers are intended to cover the organizational costs of scholarships, clinicians, needed equipment, etc. Other fundraisers will provide individuals available funds to help with individual expenses. Both types of fundraisers are important to the health of our organizations. In either circumstance, all funds raised through the band, band parents or choir parents organizations are the sole property of that organization.

About individual student credits:

As a courtesy, our music organizations allow individuals to earn fundraising credits. All fundraisers are optional.
Fundraising credits earned through band/choir fundraisers may only be applied to band/choir expenses.
Graduating seniors with individual account balances will have their balance returned to the primary organization’s general fund account at the close of their senior year.
Graduating seniors may request that their account balance be transferred to their younger sibling’s band/choir account only. No other relations will be allowed.

CLOSING
Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please contact us with any questions or concerns. We understand these are uncertain times and we want to do our best to not add any additional stress or hardship.

Thank you,
Mr. Kershaw & Mr. Yerkes

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WDMB News Blog

WD Music Department Senior Awards

CHICAGO UPDATE #2

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