'80s Pop Star Visits School District to Support Music Programs

The fifth grade band at  played for a very special guest on Friday—never mind that students likely had, at best, only a vague idea of who she was.

Sheila E, a percussionist and pop star who played with Prince in the 1980s, visited Madison and the neighboring school district offices on Friday afternoon to show her support for the district's beleaguered music program.

The star, who was born in Oakland, is in the Bay Area over the weekend for a string of performances at Yoshi's Jazz Club in San Francisco with her brother, Peter Michael Escovedo, and father, local Latin jazz legend Pete Escovedo. She came to San Leandro at the invitation of Rick Richards, founder of the Keep Music Rockin' Foundation, which raises money for the 's music program.

The district is set to cut the fifth grade band program in half, which would bring band practice down to one 30-minute session per week. The planned cut would save the district $85,000 per year, according to school officials.

Several camera-snapping reporters and a group of district employees greeted Sheila E and her manager, Lynn Mabry, as they pulled up to the district office in an SUV. After shaking hands, posing for pictures and signing autographs (she signs her name backwards), Sheila was escorted into a conference room and joined by district officials, music teachers, and two school board members.

Richards laid out the plight of the school music program, which has suffered a series of cutbacks in recent years as the district struggles to cope with an ever-shrinking budget.  

Currently a mere $8,000 is allocated to the music programs at 11 schools (not including teacher salary). The 12th school in the district, , has no music program.

Both facts left the musician and her manager aghast.

"Taking music out of the schools will create an emotional issue for the kids," said manager Mabry.

With respect to Lincoln students, Sheila E said, "Those are the ones we really have to help." 

The musician, who kept her wide, dark sunglasses on throughout the meeting, spoke of the foundation she and Mabry started, the Elevate Hope Foundation. The foundation supports art and music therapy for children, especially those with troubled lives.

The artist, who started playing violin in the third grade, said she understands the power of the art form.

"We totally understand what music has done for us," she said. "Without it I don't know where I would be."

She suggested they all take a trip to the state capitol to let lawmakers know how important it is to keep music programs alive. 

"We're ready to go, let's go," she said.

School district officials nodded, and then noted that many of them had already been to the capitol many times in recent years to lobby against education cuts. 

About 4,000 students in the district participate in the music program, out of a total of 8,900 students, according to Richards.  

Cutting music classes in elementary school means middle and high school music teachers have to catch kids up to the expected level of proficiency, said Janet Beck, who heads the district's music department and teaches music at .

"Every time we take a hit, we lower our level [of quality]," Beck said.

Taking into account absences and holidays, fifth grade music students probably wouldn't advance much with just one session per week, she added. 

"We'll have to start them all over in sixth grade because they won't have learned enough," Beck said.

As the conversation started to seem hopeless, the visitors evoked the power of private money. 

"Give us a wish list of everything you need," Sheila E said. Richards said he'd work with music teachers to come up with the list. 

Mission accomplished, the group headed over to Madison's auditorium, where the student band awaited on stage. The students played through a series of short, slightly off-key songs as Sheila E smiled away at them from a folding chair at the back of the auditorium.

Afterwards she addressed the band through a microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, you are very, very good. Give yourselves a round of applause," she said.

She then signed music sheets and notebooks for the kids, who swarmed around her onstage.