When Collier County schools partner together, good things happen. Take Tommie Barfield Elementary School, for example. The school offers a drum club to students, run by music teacher Craig Greusel and technology teacher Jody McCarty. To enhance the experience for its drum club students, the school contacted Lely High School to see if its Drum Line would be interested in working together. The results have been nothing short of fantastic.
“All of our leadership clubs have a service-learning project that goes with them, and so that’s kind of how this idea came about,” explained Alyssa Ledbetter, principal of TBE. “Lely is our high school, our feeder partner high school, so many of our kids will be going there. Therefore, we thought it would be a great opportunity for them to come together in this unique partnership and connect the older kids with the younger kids and create that experience for them.”
“I like playing drums,” shared TBE fifth grader Kai Rossi. “It gets me entertained.”
“Coming back [to TBE] has been nice, because I haven’t been back here in a couple of years,” said LHS Drum Line member and former TBE student Maggie Poling. “It’s nice to see the kids and how they love drum club.”
“I like playing drums because drums, it’s like you can play a rhythm,” added Ethan Pattath, another fifth-grade student at TBE.
LHS 10th grader Ben Musgrave hopes to teach the younger students that “music can be fun.”
Principal Ledbetter wanted to take the program one step further with its success. “We thought it would be a great experience for them to go to a high school football game and see the whole thing – Friday night lights, the band, the drum line – and experience that with them there. From the moment they stepped off the bus at Lely High School, I heard them say this is the best day of their life, making this whole experience worth it.”
We spoke with some TBE students while at the Friday night game. “Since I was a kid, I liked drumming and everything, so I think it’s why I got back to drumming,” shared Michael Lake. “I like getting my spirit back on!”
“It was really fun to cheer with the cheerleaders and watch the gameplay,” added Suraya St. Germain.
One of the highlights for the students was witnessing everyone doing the LHS cheer, “Go, Lely, Go, Lely, Go!”
We encourage each of our schools to take the opportunity to connect with their partner schools. You never know the fantastic, enriching experiences that may be found!