Mr. Benjamin Leonard-White, Director

Highland Middle & High Schools

9135 Erie Street Highland, IN 46322

school: (219) 922-5610

direct: (219) 237-8442

web: www.highlandorchestra.org

email: bleonard@highland.k12.in.us

HMS Remind: www.remind.com/join/stohstring

HHS Band App: band.us/n/aea9b2I2aeY6A

Booster Band App: band.us/n/aeaebeIcz0Q21

Course Description

“Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

– Leonard Bernstein

Orchestra is a year-long class offered in grades 6-12 that serves as a building block from previously learned music curriculum to advanced performance. Students learn how to play a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, double bass) in the ensemble, read music, interpret rhythms and musical markings as well as perform, on average, four times each year.

Members of the Highland Orchestra will show respect to each other, the directors, as well as guest clinicians. In addition, a positive attitude is expected from each member. A negative attitude defeats our goal of cooperative teamwork and will not be welcomed.

This handbook contains important dates, policies and procedures for both in and out of class. Please read and review with your parents or guardians, sign and return the agreement form.

Classroom Expectations

Students are expected to understand and follow the guidelines set forth in the Highland High School and Middle School Parent/Student Handbooks. In addition, the following will be expected from each student:

1. Students are productive and attentive during rehearsal
2. Students are prepared for class and practice at home as necessary to participate in rehearsals during the school day
3. Arriving to class

1. Students should arrive by the bell at the beginning of class.

1. HHS students should be in the orchestra room by 7:30 a.m. for classes at the beginning of the day or a tardy will be given.
2. HMS students will meet outside of room 624 to be directed to their respective locker rooms.

2. Each class period has 1-2 minutes each day to unpack and check their instrument for repair needs and rosin bows
3. All personal items should be left in the locker rooms until rehearsal is over (binders, cases, backpacks, rosin)
4. Have all music materials necessary for rehearsal: iPad, page turner, instrument, accessory

4. Students attend to all maintenance and repair concerns outside of rehearsal: before or after rehearsal time. A representative from Quinlan & Fabish Music Company visits each week to deliver materials and pick up instruments in need of repair. Please see Maintenance & Repair for more information regarding family obligations.
5. There is to be no candy, food, gum, or drinks in the orchestra room. Bottled water is acceptable for high school students. Middle school students are not permitted water bottles.
6. At no time is anyone allowed to play an instrument other than their own, whether it is school-owned or student-owned, without prior permission from the director. (that includes pianos and percussion instruments). Playing another instrument may result in damage repair costs that the student will be responsible for reimbursing.
7. Cell phone and other personal electronic device use is strictly prohibited during the instructional day. Students should refer to the HHS PED Policy or HMS Student Handbook for specific cell phone policies and consequences.

Attendance & Discipline

Tardies:

Students are to be in the room when the bell rings and have one additional minute to be in their seats and prepared to play. Please check the Middle & High School handbooks regarding tardy policies.

Disruptive Behavior:

If a student disrupts rehearsal time, the student will be given a warning.

If the disruption continues, the student may be assigned a detention and/or referred to the office. Contact may also be made to the parent/guardian.

Extreme Discipline Clause: In case of a serious disruption, the student will be asked to leave class immediately and an office referral will follow.

Absences:

There are two types of absences in the co-curricular ensemble: excused and unexcused. Any absence must be submitted to the director before missing a rehearsal to allow time to be given an alternate assignment.

Excused Absences are submitted well before the event. Examples of excused absences are:

1. An illness that would confine the student at home or hospital.
2. A death in the family.
3. A religious holiday.
4. A School Town of Highland sponsored activity which requires the student to participate in an event scheduled previously to the announcement of the rehearsal or performance.
   Performances, as an extension of the classroom outweigh sporting events; however many conflicts can be resolved with advance notice.

Unexcused Absences are those absences that do not fit in the above categories or were received well after an event. An unexcused absence may result in the student’s removal from any orchestra leadership position (including section leadership) and negatively affect your grade.

Grading

Your grade rests on two strong pillars: Preparation and Performance. If either pillar is weak, the bridge to a strong final grade will crumble.

• Pillar 1: Preparation (40%) – steady work all quarter keeps this pillar strong.
• Pillar 2: Performance (60%) – high-stakes concerts and tests stand on the foundation you built

Pillar 1: Preparation – 40%

1. Weekly Preparation Scores – 20% of overall grade  (8 per quarter)

• Scored once per week on a 0–5 rubric:

• 5 = Fully prepared (all materials, focused, engaged, contributing)
• 3–4 = Minor lapses in materials or focus
• 1–2 = Often unprepared or disengaged
• 0 = Did not participate or brought no materials

• Missing several days or being consistently unprepared lowers that week’s score.

2. Readiness Assessments – 20% of overall grade (2–3 per quarter)

• Low-pressure, in-class checks of section or individual preparedness. (You won’t likely know when these are happening, unless it’s homework!)
• Based on accuracy, rhythm, tone, and marked music.
• Designed to show steady improvement toward concerts without the stress of a big playing test.

Pillar 2: Performance – 60%

1. Quarterly Playing Exam – 30% of overall grade

• Evaluates individual performance quality, accuracy, tone, musicality, and preparedness.
• Data used for seating placement in Spartan and HHS Orchestra.
• (This weight may be omitted for Beginning HMS string players, or modified to look different from “A Quarterly.”)

2. Concert & Event Attendance – 20% of overall grade

• Must attend; unexcused absence = zero.

3. Performance Quality & Prep Trajectory – 10% of overall grade

• Based on the final two weeks of rehearsal and contribution to ensemble readiness.

Uniforms

A crisp, uniform look brings professionalism to our orchestra program. Students are required to perform in the concert wear below when representing the School Town of Highland Orchestra.

All-Black Dress Clothes

Black Button-up Shirt/Blouse

Black Pants*

Black Tie is optional

Black socks/hosiery

Shoes: black dress shoes, close-toed, flats, or a heel are acceptable. No clogs or Crocs, sandals, flip-flops, or casual boots will be accepted. Shoes that require socks should include black socks

*Dresses and skirts are acceptable but should fall past the knee, generally mid-calf.

Fees & Property Use

For optimal use of the rehearsal rooms, stands and equipment, personal instruments, and instruments on loan from the School Town of Highland, the following guidelines are given. These are intended to protect the belongings of others, promote proper use of the rooms and equipment, and assure a good learning atmosphere for each student.

Fair Share Fees

In order to provide the equipment, materials, and experiences necessary to help grow and maintain the Highland Orchestra Program, each orchestra member is responsible for paying a fair share fee of $40 per school year. “Fair Share” is calculated by adding each cost and dividing it among the total number of orchestra students. Some costs include:

• $1,800 on awards for orchestra students, including Varsity Letters and national awards
• Other costs incurred by consumable materials such as sheet music, strings, rosin, or major school instrument repairs

Fee Discounts

If your family is experiencing financial hardship, please contact a Booster Officer or Mr. Leonard- White to discuss your options.

Maintenance Fee & Property Use

There will be no maintenance fees for the use of school property (cellos, basses.) Any damages beyond “wear and tear” will be the responsibility of the student and parent to reimburse. Scholarship instruments are available on a case-by-case basis for home use at $60 per year.

Violin, Viola, and Bass Lockers

Lockers are available for students to store their violins, violas, basses and sheet music inside the orchestra room. Students must use the provided lock; personal locks are not permitted. All lockers in use must be locked when there are materials inside.

Personal Instrument Liability

Students are required to hold instrument maintenance/liability insurance or agree to release all parties (School Town of Highland staff and students) from responsibility for any and all damages to their personally owned instruments should damage occur while at school or during school sponsored events. Students who intentionally damage instruments will, of course, still be held accountable for their behavior and appropriately disciplined.

Sheet Music & Page Turners

• All class music will be distributed via Google Classroom. Students requiring music will have access to the ForScore app in Self Service.
• All students using music should use the ForScore app! Music should not be loaded in other applications.
• Students are expected to annotate their own copies of their music accordingly.
• Each student will be assigned a foot switch for page turns. The replacement fee for a lost or missing page turner is $100.

CutTime

Mr. Leonard-White and the Boosters utilize a software called CutTime to keep track of equipment use, fees, forms, and other fun administrative items. Your CutTime account will be the central location for important and up-to-date information such as your mailing address, parent phone numbers, etc. Please visit app.gocuttime.com to log in and ensure your account is up to date.

Varsity Awards

Varsity awards are given to High School Orchestra members based upon a point system for service on their string instrument. The awards are as follows: Varsity Graduation Numerals (100 pts), Varsity Letter (200 pts), Instrument Insert-Pin for Varsity Letter (300 pts), and Four Year Service pin (400 pts.) An Award of Excellence will be given for students who reach 500 pts or more as a way of recognizing their dedication to the orchestra program throughout their time in high school. Varsity points can be earned in the following ways:

Creating & Performing
60        Required Orchestra Performances (4)
15        ISSMA District Solo
10        ISSMA District Ensemble
20        ISSMA State Solo or Ensemble
20        Camerata Participation (per semester)
20        Pit Orchestra (per production)
10        Performance outside of school
        Program required with student name printed

Responding & Connecting
10        Concert-going Attendance*
        Any genre at or above your current ability
20        Private Lessons (per semester)
*short, paragraph description of concert required with ticket stub or program

There may be additional opportunities during the school year to earn points and will be publicly announced.

Maintenance & Repair

The proper upkeep of a string instrument can be a costly affair, and the Highland Orchestra has partnered with Quinlan & Fabish to handle the majority of these issues. About 9 in every 10 maintenance issues are covered by Q&F’s Maintenance Plan. These plans are recommended when renting instruments, but not required. For those who are renting/purchasing from Quinlan and have declined coverage, as well as those who rent from another company or own their own instrument, please remember the following.

• Your director does a great deal of preventative maintenance for you, and recommends actions that will help extend the life of your instrument. A properly cared for instrument can last for decades. Students who do not follow these instructions could cause damage to their personal property, which is their financial responsibility to repair.
• Q&F does offer store-to-school service, even for instruments which are not their own. In many cases, VSO’s (Violin-Shaped-Objects) may not be able to be repaired by their technicians. They have had success repairing and maintaining personal instruments, while others have been returned ‘unrepairable.’
• If a broken rental/purchase from Q&F is able to have a replacement request placed by your director, that will be sent immediately when your instrument is found to be damaged.
• Your director is not responsible for instruments which Q&F is not able to repair or if a replacement is requested and denied. This will be passed along to you the minute we receive notification that a parent should contact Quinlan directly. From past experience, this means that there is business that your family must settle with the music store before a replacement can be secured.

Most notably, replacement strings are the number one repair that our class sees on a monthly basis. There are quality replacement strings available in our ‘extras’ folder, but these strings are not able to be given freely (as our stock is constantly dwindling.)

• If you are covered under a Q&F maintenance plan, these strings will be replaced free of charge.
• Those individuals who are not covered will have the current cost of replacement billed to their student account.
• If your student’s account has a zero balance, the string will not be replaced until the amount is brought to class.
• Students who are not able to participate in our daily rehearsals due to extended maintenance issues will see it reflected in their grade.

Please consider buying a quality set of strings if you own your instrument for your student to keep in their case. These are especially great buys during Black Friday or other holiday sales at Shar Music (.com), Southwest Strings (swstrings.com) or any other reputable music dealer. (Amazon is not recommended.)

Miscellaneous

Communication

As a musician, I love answering questions about my subject matter, however there are appropriate times to do this. Students may check in with me at the beginning or end of class with any questions or concerns. I can be reached easily via email, bleonard@highland.k12.in.us, for many different reasons, but I ask that students keep emails music related instead of personal in nature.

Due to some changes in app permissions, I am transitioning from Remind to BandApp for High School and Booster communication this year. Middle School will still receive reminders via Remind.

Extra Credit Events

I will publicize many different events happening in the Chicagoland region. Posters for upcoming concerts or musical productions are usually found on the whiteboard, and any extra credit opportunities are pointed out this way.

Students may submit any extra live concert or musical event to me by providing a ticket stub or program as well as a paragraph explaining what they saw or heard at the event. 5 XC points will be awarded in the assignment category each quarter for this. You may also earn extra credit by performing somewhere outside of class assignments (pit orchestra, church, Camerata, etc.) This will earn you 5 XC points per quarter.

Calendar of Events

The orchestra calendar can be found online in CutTime or on the Band App. Events have already been posted for the coming school year, which include a required performance each nine weeks for students in all grades. Please mark these concert dates on your family calendar, and contact me immediately with any conflicts.

Very Important Dates:

10/8/25 - October Concert

12/8/25 - December Concert

3/3/26 - March Concert

5/20/26 - May Combined Concert (with Band)

5/21/26 - Awards Cookout