Courtesy photo

Matthew and Sara Cooper (blue shirts), Emma and Haley Rodden, Adam Orlabukowski (rear), Sam Patterson and Alex Orlabukowski brought coins to Union Bank of California’s San Leandro vault with Financial Services Officer Paul Gutierrez.

In the face of drastic cuts in school programs, from athletics to elementary music education, parents and the schools’ Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) are pulling out all the stops to raise money to save the music for the little ones. That means a range of activities from big-name concerts to bake sales, soliciting donations large and small, and collecting pennies from the pockets of the district’s youngest pupils.

Paden Elementary School had a Nickel Monday and Penny Tuesday last week, for example, where students brought in as many coins as they could toward saving their beloved music classes. That effort alone brought in some $3,500, according to Sue McMahon, Paden’s office manager. “I’ve just got a bucket of change here,” she said. Paden’s annual Circus for the Arts got into the act last weekend by dedicating the event’s raffle toward saving the music. That added another $4,000 to the fund.

And students from Bay Farm Elementary School pulled their wagons full of coins into the San Leandro branch of Union Bank April 16. Bay Farm students have raised more than $10,000, including more than $3,000 in coins, to help save music programs for grades one through three at their school and throughout the Alameda Unified School District.

“Union Bank made our children and their pennies feel like a million bucks!” said parent Lorri Garrett, Bay Farm PTA’s “Save Our Music” campaign manager.

Bay Farm’s PTA has taken the lead in raising awareness and funds for the district-wide Alameda PTA Council “Save Our Music” campaign. Additional fundraising events and concerts will continue in May with the goal of raising $200,000 by May 15, according to Trish Spencer, president of the Alameda PTA Council. “It’s beyond a parent cause,” Spencer said. “It’s a community cause - which is why I’m confident that we’ll meet our goal.”

While some PTAs in Alameda are better able than others to raise funds for music or other programs, depending on the socioeconomic strength of their schools’ populations, music in the elementary grades is vital, and Spencer isn’t willing to let it languish anywhere. Because the district had to give layoff notices to music teachers by March 15, those teachers are wondering if the Measure H parcel tax will pass and if they’ll still have their jobs. The Board of Education must take action by May 15 to terminate or keep those teachers, thus the May 15 goal of raising the $200,000, according to Spencer.

In addition, the loss of music changes the instruction hours for elementary schoolchildren, releasing them an hour earlier one day a week. The earlier dismissal could result in parents having to pay for extra child-care and cause logistical difficulties for parents of more than one child getting out at different hours on different weekdays, said Spencer.

Because music was cut while the one hour of physical education was saved during the late-night budget discussion of March 4, when the board of education met until 1:30 a.m. trying to make the cuts, parents and teachers are unhappy with the imbalance. The “Save the Music” campaign will give the district and Board of Education time to rebalance the situation, according to Spencer.

She said that if the PTAs can pledge enough money to keep the teachers, then if the parcel tax passes, those jobs will be saved, and if not, there will still be enough funds to continue the music program for at least another year. If the parcel tax does pass June 3, each school’s PTA will get to keep its own music funds and use them toward other extra programs

like music for kindergarten.

Local jazz guitarist Terrence Brewer, a featured performer in Friday’s concert, has no children. But that doesn’t mean he’s not concerned about the budget crisis hitting schools. “I don’t have kids in the Alameda school system, but I’m wholly invested in the Alameda community and happy to do whatever I can to help out,” he said.

“I was fortunate enough to have music in the schools when I was in the elementary (grades),” said Brewer. He started playing the recorder in the school band in third grade, and progressed to playing clarinet and saxophone in junior high school. “I was exposed to classical, jazz and popular music in school,” he said. Brewer has just released his third CD to critical acclaim and was recently voted the SF Weekly’s Best Jazz Artist and the Oakland Chamber of Commerce Artist of the Year.

Natasha Miller, who is co-producing the Friday concert, concurred. “I care because if these kids don’t get music in first, second or third grade, then we’ve lost them. These are the formative years.” Miller went to college on a music scholarship.

“This is my community. I’m a product of 100 percent public schools,” said the accomplished singer, violinist and composer. “If (kids) don’t have music anymore, most of them won’t ever touch an instrument. They won’t ever speak the language of music.”

And after three years of successful monthly concerts where Miller and opera star Frederica von Stade raised funds for musical instruments, “that’s $100,000 of instruments and supplies that will be in a storage room.”

Friday’s concert features Alameda chanteuse Natasha Miller, the Eyewitness Blues Band and Friends with KCBS radio personalities Al Hart, Stan Bunger and Mike Sugarman, and the SF Chronicle’s Steve Rubenstein; jazz guitarist Terrence Brewer; Dann Zinn, Chris Planas and Alameda music students, including the Alameda High School jazz band, the Chipman Middle School band and Cougar Cadet Corps, Encinal High School student body president Ian Merrifield’s band, Haiku Ambulance, and elementary school students performing.

Tickets to Friday’s concert are $25 for adults and $10 for students, and are available at The Wolf and the Hare on Bay Farm Island; Starland Music Center on Park Street; at www.brown papertickets.com, and at the door. Kofman Auditorium is located at 2200 Central Ave.

Contact Julia Park Tracey at