Great equalizer: Why this superintendent makes music a high priority Matt Zalaznick on March 6, 2024 at 12:05 pm

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Superintendent Amy Carter couldn’t afford an instrument in high school, so she had to find another way into the band. She joined the flag corps and became its captain and got a band scholarship to Mississippi Valley State University. There, the band director inspired her to begin learning to play the saxophone.

Amy J. Carter

Carter describes herself as a shy child who, perhaps for that very reason, was often chosen as a narrator for high school plays. At first, she thought the drama teacher was picking on her by forcing her into the limelight. “She said ‘I see something in you you don’t yet see in yourself,’” Carter recalled. “Music, and the arts in general, that is where I found my voice as a kid.”

Finding that voice is a gift that she has long been passionate about passing on to her students in Mississippi’s Meridian Public School District, says Carter, who received the Save The Music Foundation Award for Distinguished Support Of Music Education at last month’s AASA, The School Superintendents Association conference.

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She realized early on as a teacher that music and the arts are productive ways to channel younger students’ boundless energy and engage them further in their learning. As an administrator, Carter convinced a previous superintendent to place a music teacher in every elementary school.

As superintendent, she has continued to invest heavily in young, energetic middle school band directors to bolster feeder programs into Meridian’s high schools. A partnership with the Save the Music Foundation ensures that all students have access to instruments.

“The arts, music, represent opportunity, voice, doors that normally would not be open to kids from impoverished backgrounds,” she asserts. “It means so much more than let’s just put an instrument in a kid’s hand or let’s give kids a chance to sing. And what I love is children are starting to see it.”

Meridian’s musical and theater performances are now as well-attended as athletic events. Carter has also expanded professional development to help teachers embed music and the arts in subjects across the curriculum.

“It’s the great equalizer,” she notes. “For kids from impoverished backgrounds, school is a safe place. Even when you look at the challenges students face today, in any part of the country, arts and music can be an escape for a kid.”

Her efforts to embed music and the arts throughout her district’s curriculum are paying off in even bigger ways: improved grades, higher attendance and greater student engagement. Very few students who participate in band get into trouble in school and their attendance and grades are better. And an increasing number of Meridian graduates are earning college arts and music scholarships, she notes.

When Carter became superintendent in 2016, Meridian was designated as a low-performing, failing district. Now, the system is “right on the cusp” of being recognized as high-performing.

“When I started, it was ‘You have to get test scores up, you have to get test scores up,’” she concludes. “Ultimately, it became, if I do what’s right for students, if we create opportunity for them, voice for them, help them see their potential, the test scores will come.”

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