In a post on social media the "Friends of Evergreen High School" group revealed that the music progams at the school will be cut back due to lower than expected enrollment.

"Due to lower than expected enrollment at Evergreen this year (which impacts the budget and available funding), the school made the difficult decision to transfer our band director Jeffrey Steen to another school. As a result, the following band options will not be offered this year--symphonic band, wind ensemble, jazz ensemble and marching band. And you will not see a traditional band during the Homecoming assembly or game.

Please see the message sent to students and families below, and Evergreen's commitment to offer robust and culturally-responsive music programs for our students."

They shared this letter sent to Evergreen families

-----------------------------

"Dear Evergreen Families and Community,

Every year, schools need to make adjustments to course offerings based on the actual number of students enrolled in each course. This affects multiple schools every year and last week Evergreen was tasked with making our staffing and budget work with the unfortunate consequence of needing to reduce one full time staff member. This decision was not made lightly and our school leadership took extensive time to look through and explore every available option and impact of this reduction.

As a result of this budgetary need, Evergreen High School is making shifts to their music program due to declining student enrollment. Our counseling team is working hard to ensure these students remain engaged in music programming and anticipate shifting most of them to existing choral, mariachi and guitar programs, as well as a recreated section of orchestra by Thursday, September 28. These programs have the capacity to provide opportunities for all impacted students to continue a music experience, even if it is in a different music program. We are also exploring ways to engage our community in supporting after school music offerings.

We understand it is difficult for students when they are moved from one class to another, and we have had our counselors meeting directly with all impacted students. Even though this decision is necessary, we also recognize that moving teachers and students to different courses is disruptive. As always, we are doing our best to minimize the impact on students and staff.

During this time of challenge and change, please keep supporting our Evergreen family and know we are doing our best to ensure students have access to and success in our music programs, and we will continue to collaborate in growing robust, culturally-responsive music programs at The Evergreen High School."