Program areas at The Mr Holland's Opus Foundation
During The fiscal year ending june 30, 2023, mhof donated a total of 1,972 new instruments and 894 new accessories, such as mouthpieces, method books, and music stands, to 103 schools across The country. Over The life of The instruments, an estimated 19,720 plus students will be impacted. The donations allow students in those schools who can't afford to rent or buy an instrument, and/or that are on waiting lists, an opportunity to join The music program and play quality instruments. This improves their experience, inspires confidence, and increases skills. Music education district support services (medss) is a revolutionary district wide assessment and consulting service that utilizes data and teacher voices to identify and address The challenges and barriers creating inequities for student access and participation in quality, sequential and sustainable music and arts programming at every school. Tennessee school districts are seeing The incredible impact of their participation in The Tennessee: state of The arts study, powered by mhof's medss and funded by The cma Foundation. Of The 23 participating Tennessee school districts, mhof discovered that 77% of districts have a higher percentage of music and arts students who scored proficient in reading compared to The schoolwide averages at The majority of The more than 500 schools included in The assessment. Similarly, 70% of districts have a higher percentage of music and arts students who scored proficient in math compared to The schoolwide averages at The majority of schools. Further, The average districtwide attendance rate for all districts is 85%; however, when looking at only those students enrolled in music and arts courses, The average attendance rate jumps to 93%. We applaud coffee county schools and chester county schools who each hired a new music teacher for their district in response to medss findings. We're thrilled to see that students will now have sequential music program offerings. At The district's request, a second medss assessment is underway in The los angeles unified school district. Lausd superintendent alberto m. carvalho noted that medss results and recommendations will inform The district's strategy to address arts education inequities and challenges throughout 900 schools that serve over 500,000 students in The second largest district in The nation. Additionally, mhof is hard at work this school year conducting second assessments requested by d.c. public schools, atlanta public schools, san diego unified and san francisco unified. We are also excited to provide medss services to our newest partner district, orange county public schools in fl.
Mhof administers The music rising fund, a national relief fund for schools affected by natural disasters in The united states and u.s. Territories, and works closely with schools requesting help with replacing instruments and supplies lost and damaged by natural disasters. Through The generous support of The country artist chris and morgane stapleton's outlaw state of kind charitable fund, mhof worked with three schools across eastern Kentucky that lost instruments and supplies because of devastating floods, donating and replacing 92 musical instruments, 680 reeds, 6 ligatures, 11 cases, and 2 storage cabinets valued at more than $126,723.