Carroll County Public Schools offer all students in grades elementary through high school access to elective programs in choral music. The method of scheduling chorus in the elementary and middle school grades varies from school to school. Ask your school's music teacher how to get involved in the chorus.
In some middle schools, chorus is the music class that students select in place of the general music course offering. In this case, participation in the evening public performance is a requirement for this courses grade.
In most elementary schools and some middle schools the chorus is an extracurricular opportunity that is scheduled as a pull out program. Choral music is one of the first opportunities a child's education for the child to formally reach beyond the required course of study into an elective. Children who study choral music develop a work ethic that emphasizes attention to detail and delayed gratification. These are two traits that are found in the most successful academic students. Since rehearsals are a pull out program, children will have the opportunity to develop habits of personal responsibility, such as making sure that they get any make up work completed that occurred while they were out of the room. Therefore, this is a discussion that parents should have with your child before joining the pull out choral music program.
Many parents wonder if their child is ready for this responsibility, but research tells us that students who participate in music pull out programs, academically out perform their peers who do not participate in the pull out programs. These benefits don't come easily but are well worth the effort required by the student and the effort of support given by the parent and the teachers.
The high school choral programs offer opportunities to explore sophisticated literature and active involvement in curricular as well as extracurricular music program experiences. Enrollment in these classes fulfills the fine arts graduation requirement mandated by the State of Maryland. The high school music programs offer course work that can provide students with the ability to begin their journey to have music as a profession or to gain a richer insight to a life long avocation.
Although many people in the community know the choral programs for their performances at the various school and community events, the focus of our program is on comprehensive musicianship – specifically, the development of musical perception, aesthetic sensitivity, and technical mastery. Certainly there are other social enrichment by-products and the development of priceless life skills learned by all of our music students, but these are in addition to the foundation of our program's number-one priority – music education of our students.