by Isaac Steven Raymer

JHS has two new band directors Briston Hatchell and Sidney McDonald, who are co-teaching everything music related and like jazz, band, and guitar. 

Both band directors have said that they’ve considered themselves friends for a fair amount of years; both having music teaching experience before joining JHS. Hatchell said he has 10 years of teaching band, which includes several years at Floyd Central High School. McDonald has three years of teaching experience at both the middle and high school levels. 

It’s definitely clear they both have a passion for teaching music, and music as a whole. Both teachers have had their lives impacted by music.

Hatchell, early in life, said he wanted to be an architect until he realized there’s a lot of math involved. While he “wasn’t good at math,” he was talented with the trumpet, so in middle school he decided he wanted to teach music.

McDonald did not take the same path as Hatchell in high school, as she really liked chemistry and ended up becoming a chemistry major in college for a year. She decided to transfer schools for a music program since she missed music and decided to do drum core, which led to her transferring to Indiana State as a music major.  

Both teachers described that they love teaching, and they both put in a lot of work to make sure they are helping all their students the most they can. But it does become a very time consuming job.

An average week of teaching for them normally consists of marching band on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and most Saturdays after school, with an open band room around three days a week so kids can practice if they would like with either of the musical directors. 

A school day for them normally consists of AP music theory, guitar and then for the last three periods – 4th, 6th, and 7th – they collaborate and teach intermediate band, a big guitar class, and advanced band. 

Even though they are both doing a lot for all of JHS’s music-related activities, there is still much more they want to do with an emphasis on the band program.

Hatchell said, “We want it bigger, we want more kids and, you can put this in print, we have a school of 2,300 kids and our goal over five years is 10% of the school, so that’s 230 kids, so if we get to that then I say we achieved our goal.”

He makes it very clear that they both want to be able to teach the most they possibly can. They also stated that, even though the band is pretty well funded, they do run fundraisers to help JHS music-related classes be the highest quality they can be.  

Those interested in marching band can go to https://jeffersonvillebands.org to find every upcoming event involving JHS music.