Band Won’t Change Tune on GOP Gig

Band members at Canyon High School weren’t thinking about supporting one political party or another. They were thinking about the more than $4,000 their Anaheim band could get for just a few hours of work, knocking on the doors of Garden Grove Republicans on election day, urging them to go vote.

State and district education officials used words like “inappropriate” and “partisan politics.” An attorney for the state Department of Education said it likely violated the state Education Code. Orange County Democratic Party leaders expressed outrage.

Much ado about nothing, if you ask the kids.

They would have taken cash from anyone: George W. Bush, Al Gore, even Ralph Nader. The bottom line is money, and more than a dozen band members interviewed Thursday say they need more of it to replace uniforms and instruments used year after year.

Sara Kaplan, 15, had no interest in pushing the election one way or the other. “I don’t even know what I am,” she said when asked which party she favors.

“We had a right to do this,” Sara said. “We have to do this or not have a band.”

At La Canada High School in Los Angeles County, band members interviewed had a more critical reaction to their participation in a GOP event. On Oct. 30, the band played at a fund-raising rally in Burbank for Bush.

But their objections revolved less about whether it was appropriate for a public school band to use school time to play at a partisan political event--although that’s the issue that concerns the Education Department attorney. Instead, they complained at having to wait a long time before their gig began--and were upset that the promised lunch ended up being too few sandwiches to go around.

“If we knew this was the way it would be, we wouldn’t have gone,” said 15-year-old Dannel Shanker.

Dannel said he and many other band members initially were excited by the news that they would perform before a national political figure.

“But when we got around to thinking about it . . . most of the band is Democratic . . . so it was kind of a flimsy decision to make,” he said.

“I had very mixed feelings because I’m not a Republican and it was a political event,” said Avima Shanker, Dannel’s mother. She attended anyway to see her son play--wearing a Clinton-Gore T-shirt.

Students and school officials said that everyone who went was a volunteer. And all but a handful of the band’s 120 members attended.

Justin Bahrami, 17, was also glad to play his piccolo in front of Bush. And most of the complaining he heard wasn’t about politics.

“Mostly there was academic dissension,” Justin said. “Teachers are strict with class requirements.”

La Canada Principal Mike Leininger said Wednesday he does not plan to allow similar band appearances in the future.

And an assistant superintendent in the Orange Unified School District, which includes Canyon High, said Wednesday that bands and other school groups would be prohibited from fund-raising events like the one Tuesday.

Seeing No Problem or Need for Apology

Canyon High students said the circumstances of their involvement with the GOP was different from that of the La Canada students. They did not carry instruments or wear their uniforms as they knocked on doors to earn their $50 apiece for the band. They were there as individuals, not the band. They think they even talked some Democrats and independents into voting, although they had been hired to go to the homes of only Republicans.

Chris Nguyen, 15, said the students were acting strictly as volunteers. They were expressly told not to identify themselves as being from Canyon High School or as members of the band, he said. And they didn’t urge people to vote Republican, but simply to vote.

Chris is suspicious of protesters’ motives. If the Democrats paid the tab, it wouldn’t be news, he said.

His father, Dan Nguyen, a registered Independent, chuckles at the comment. His son is already forming political opinions--which is exactly why the father had no problem with the fund-raiser. He even took the afternoon off work to drive some band members to Garden Grove.

When they were all through, the kids in his car were glued to the radio awaiting election news.

Some parents acknowledged that, at first glance, the fund-raiser was a little strange.

“I believe the money was partisan, but I don’t think that what the kids did was partisan,” said parent Jeff Kaplan, a Democrat. “I don’t have a problem with what they did.”

For a band that gets only $12,000 annually from the school and district and must raise about $65,000 more, it was an easy way to bring in a lot of money in about two hours of work, several students and parents said.

Without it, the band would go without new uniforms, and coaches for the color guard, dance team and percussion section. Or it would have spent day after day trying to peddle candy, said Jerrod Brewster, 15.

Jerrod said band director Harold Witten apologized to the students Thursday even though, Jerrod said, “he didn’t have to.”

They don’t see a problem. For that matter, neither does Witten.

Under the Education Code, students cannot be solicited for work in any organization not directly under the auspices of school authorities during school time. Nor can any school supplies or equipment be used to urge support or defeat of a measure or candidate.

“I apologized to the students for the problems they’ve encountered,” Witten said. “I don’t apologize for exercising my civil rights.”