West band had better showing at parade

Public Forum:

I'm not sure how many of you were able to attend the 4th of July parade last weekend, but I was kind of surprised to see that the number of kids marching in the East and West bands was almost the same; actually, it seemed the West band had more members marching than the East band.

I found this quite surprising seeing the total number of band members at East justifies them having a full-time band director plus one on a part-time basis. How can that be, a band of the size of East, only have 60 members marching (that's all there were, I counted)? West has fewer band members and only one director, now reduced to a 0.80 full-time equivalent, yet a larger percentage of them showed their pride in their school and community by showing up to participate in this great Wauwatosa tradition. We even had seniors who graduated in June marching with us one last time - not because they had to, but because they wanted to.

If this parade is the only one held during the year in Wauwatosa, shouldn't the bands be required to be represented to the fullest? Thanks to Richard Smith and the Tosa West band for the pride they showed to the community.

Julie Galaszewski

Open Enrollment parent

Milwaukee