Meet Our Music Teacher Extraordinaire- Ms. Sasha Stone

TMC: Why did you want to be an elementary school music teacher?

That's a good question! So, when I was in Kindergarten, I started playing the piano. In third grade, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. But, I didn't know what type of teacher I wanted to be.

I was in the band from fourth grade, all the way until I graduated high school. When I was in High School, I did something called the Marching Band, which is super fun! All my friends were in it and I remember stepping off the bus at a competition. I could hear all the bands warming up around me. I was like, wow, this is really cool! I want to do this for the rest of my life. So I wanted to be a music teacher and I went to college for that. It wasn't until I was actually in college, that I decided I wanted to be an elementary teacher because I didn't know that they even had elementary music (until then). So it was kind of a long journey to get there. But elementary music is the best type of music!!(laughs)

TMC: Congratulation! The district won the NAMM 2021 Best Communities in Music Education Award! My question is how does the district support the music program at our school?

Our district, San Marcos Unified is the only district in San Diego county that has music in every single grade level, from kindergarten to fifth grade, and then from middle to 12th. In Middle School, you can go to band and High School you can go to band or choir. So we are the only district that has that has options for music at every level. For the Elementary level, every single elementary school has a music teacher. So there are 12 Elementary music teachers, and we all work together to create a curriculum. We do performances, like the tree lighting ceremony and honor choir. We support each other and have monthly meetings to discuss what we want to teach and work together to problem solve and plan lessons. So that's one of the reasons we got the award !

TMC: What does the music program at Richland offer?

Students at Richland get to have music once a week for 40 minutes. They get to learn how to sing and dance and to learn songs from different countries. They also learn how to play the instruments like drums, xylophones, and glockenspiels. In the fourth and fifth grade, they can learn recorder and ukulele. We also have a Ukulele Club. Next year, we're going to have a couple of extra clubs as well! We're going to have a drumming club and an Orff ensemble where we get to play all the xylophones. So we have a lot of different fun things that we get to do!!

TMC: I hope you do keyboard club too!

Piano? Alright, we'll see what we can do with that.!(laughs)

TMC: How do you see the music program evolve over time?

I would love to have a district wide ensemble where kids from other schools could come and play together.. like play drums together... play ukuleles together... so that you can meet friends who are also interested in the things you're interested in, but are from different schools. I also would love to see an opportunity for students to perform not just at Richland, but within our community. Maybe at some of the retirement communities that are all around or at festivals, like the tree lighting festival and also the summer festivals that happen in San Marcos and just be part of the community.

TMC: What are you looking forward to this year?

I'm just looking forward to having students in my classroom and be able to make music together and to sing and dance!!

TMC: One last question. What is one fun thing you would like a reader to know about you?

One fun thing. Oh, my goodness! (laughs)

I've traveled the country as a part of a performing group. I toured for one summer with a competitive marching band called The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps. It was fun! It was like camping, but with 100 people. I got to travel to 11 states and perform. We went to the Mid-West, South, East coast. That was a wonderful experience!

TMC: Thank you for your time! It was fun talking to you!

Thank you ! It was fun too!