In partnership with Illinois Marching Online, Voxitatis has developed a survey to collect people’s opinions about the possibility that the state of Illinois will develop a state championship series in marching band. Our survey was launched on July 31, and as of this writing we have 37 responses, 19 of them from high school band directors.
There are about 800 high schools in Illinois, but not all of them have marching bands. And not all of those have marching bands that compete. There is wide disagreement among educators over the proper role of competition in fine arts, so many schools with fantastic marching bands do not take part in any competitive events.
The survey came about when we learned that the Illinois High School Association, which has developed wonderful state championship series in football, basketball, and other athletic extracurricular events, was going to survey its member schools—almost every public and private high school in the state—to gauge their interest in participating in a marching band state championship series, as well as in other events, like a show choir state championship series.
With 19 responses over a population size of 794, which doesn’t even allow us to report a margin of error, we have a 98% non-response rate, and that’s about all we know as far as numbers go.
The sample was self-selected, as are most online surveys, and therefore this is a biased representation of the data. In other words, we do not have a random sample, although I’m working on it. At this point, I have to say that these results do NOT reflect the opinions of Illinois band directors.
Question 1
Directors’ responses to: “Regardless of whether or not you think Illinois should sponsor a state championship series in marching band, do you think your school would participate in such a series if it were sanctioned by the IHSA?”
- Yes — 39%
- No — 33%
- Other — 28%
if it is up to me, no.
Conditionally
only if classified by band size, not school size
If it is up to me we will not. However, administrators are generally in support of this.
Not sure
Question 2
Directors’ responses to: “Should Illinois sponsor and sanction a state championship series for marching band?”
- Yes — 28%
- No — 50%
- Other — 22%
If it offers something new.
Yes, but not through IHSA
Not Sure
Not IHSA, it should be IMEA like Texas.
Our Analysis
We invite directors and everyone, once again, to enter their comments into the survey. We hope to produce results that are more statistically significant at some point.
I feel more directors are saying their schools would participate in a state championship series for marching band if one came about than they’re saying Illinois “should” have a state championship series, because directors aren’t always in control of this. Principals and athletic directors are generally the ones who decide what contests a school will or will not participate in, and there might be some of that knowledge going on in the poll.
There is also a great negativity toward the IHSA, especially in terms of the organization’s ability to run a music contest. For this, many directors said they felt another organization would do a better job, and many of them pointed to the Illinois Music Educators Association.
IMEA is on record as saying they are not committing to marching band but are discussing “contest-like events” internally within their organization. Don’t expect to hear any more specifics any time soon.
The matter at hand is that if IHSA gets 10% of the schools in the state (about 80) to say they’ll participate, IHSA will move forward with forming advisory committees and such, leading to a state championship series in marching band, sponsored by IHSA, in one or two years.
That survey happens in November, and given how these surveys work, it is entirely possible that at 80 schools in the state, principals will fill in the survey without even consulting the band directors. Many administrators are very pro-IHSA, because state series bring trophies to the school, money to the district, and great bonding between teachers, coaches, communities, and kids. This bonding is familiar to band students who compete at multi-band festivals, already organized in Illinois, some of them running for more than four decades at this point. They know how parents and other fans scream from the stands as each band takes the field.
A state tournament, several directors have said in the survey, might result in scheduling conflicts with other activities they have for their bands, such as Bands of America, where many high-level bands in Illinois compete. The band at one Oklahoma high school, for example, where I know one of the band parents because I work with her in my other job, alternates years, one year going to the BOA Grand Nationals, the next year participating in the state tournament, then BOA, then state, and so on. This gives every four-year band student two opportunities to experience the grandeur of Lucas Oil Stadium, and two chances to compete within their home state.
There are other ways to avoid the inevitable scheduling conflicts, of course, such as scheduling IHSA tournament contests on Friday nights, but that might interfere with football schedules at the schools where the contests are located. Sunday? Or even, Tuesday?
Another thought that occurred to me would be to have several “qualifying” festivals—just one great big “Band Day” at several sites across the state where all the marching bands participate. An existing festival on that date could just be absorbed into the qualifying round by having an official from IHSA present at the festival. It would be a big day of music, although not every band performing, obviously, would be as good as Marian Catholic. Scores at these festivals (the tournament scores, anyway), from one single approved judge, will determine a band’s eligibility to participate in a finals festival, which will look like a typical marching band festival, with a full complement of judges, and lead to a state championship.
These qualifying festivals would not be contests in that schools won’t be competing against each other. They’ll simply be performing for a judge—and hopefully thousands of screaming fans—to get a score. They won’t even notice, and people will get great entertainment throughout the state. Let’s say 700 schools participate in the state series. Assuming a day at these festivals could accommodate 35 performances in each region (15-minute performance interval, festival runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), we would need 20 qualifying sites across the state each year. As the IHSA does in soccer, for example, schools could sign up as the site to host one of these qualifying day festivals. Each band’s score on that day would be their qualifying score for that season.
We can play with the designation of classes a little, and this is a discussion worth having. The IHSA has great skill at grouping schools into competing classes based on school enrollment, so we could theoretically have different cut “scores” for schools in Class 1A than we do for schools in Class 2A, etc. We could also, as the IHSA does for football, wait until every band has a qualifying “score,” sort the list of bands by score, take the top 80 regardless of enrollment or whatever class is based on, and then divide the field into four equal-sized classes that could compete in a big contest like one of the festivals we have now at universities. Or maybe, we could use two of these university festivals, since a “grand champion” will not need to be named, sending two classes to one festival for the state championship and the other two to the other. Let’s get creative and come up with something to present as an alternative.
Such a system of including pre-existing festivals would have to be developed, I say, because you can debate all you want about whether music should be more heavily weighted than visuals in any rubric the IHSA would come up with, but what you cannot do is fight the scheduling. It’s like in football. If your team wins a playoff game because you’re a participating school, you have no choice but to be at the next football game, wherever that is. You can work out the time and stuff with the opposing coach, but IHSA says you have to be at a certain place on a certain weekend. There’s no getting around that.
And if the IHSA can tell directors where their band has to be on a given weekend, their only choice would be to drop out of the tournament if they weren’t able (or willing) to make it.
But listen, barring anything better to come along before IHSA gets their numbers in November—and I’m pretty sure they’ll get their numbers, and I’m pretty sure IMEA won’t step up to the plate before then—it’s going to be IHSA, because they’re the ones that acted first.
I would encourage band directors in Illinois to make their feelings known to their principals or to the school’s official representative to the IHSA, who can then respond to IHSA’s survey in November not blindly but according to the band’s best interest.
If any more numbers come in from our survey, I’ll write a new report and post it here.