The band program at Creighton Community School will look a lot different next year.
Grade 9-12 band students will be bused to Hapnot Collegiate in Flin Flon to continue band, joining the school’s band as one group next year. There will be no band available for students in Grades 6 and 7.
The division was unable to find a replacement for Creighton band director Vanessa Unrau, who is taking a year off for maternity leave.
“I’m losing about 60 kids out of my program, just because there’s no one to teach them,” Unrau said.
She said the students who will be going to Flin Flon have been instructed by Hapnot band director Kim Jones previously.
“This is a familiar face of them,” Unrau said. “My Grade 6s who are going into Grade 7, and my 7/8s won’t have band at all. And right now we have mandatory band in Grade 6.”
The Creighton Community School Band took to the stage for the final time in the 2019 school year with the Grade 6-11 spring band and choir concert on June 17. Unrau also presented awards for the year during the concert.
There are positives for Creighton’s band program next year. It will mark the first year Grade 12 students will take band. The program has slowly expanded over the years as the first crop of Grade 6 students have aged up.
Unrau said the combined Hapnot/Creighton band will provide new opportunities for students.
“It’ll be really good for the students here to be with a bigger band, because our band program is so young, that it’s not really a big thing here yet,” she said.
“It’s getting there. Retention rates are improving as they age up. But we’re just not there yet. [It will be good] To play with a larger ensemble and have and hear different things that you wouldn’t hear at our school.”
Unrau said she’ll still be around during the year, and has plans to continue to grow the program when she arrives back in school in the fall of 2020.
“When I get back, we’ll have two years of beginner band instead of one year beginner band to migrate grade six and seven,” she said. “They’ll all have never played instruments before and my grade eights will be a little rusty - But that’s okay, everyone will be at the same level.”
