Odem Bands Schedule – Week of 10/29/2018 – BOA

I hope everyone has had a restful weekend! This week with the HS we have one last push to finish our competitive season to get us into our best shape for the Bands of America Super Regional Contest on Friday! Rehearsals are necessary and mandatory through the week for all eligible students! Please see the section below about BOA for more information about this contest!

Washington, D.C. 2020:

Next week, on Monday, November 5th at 7pm we will have a meeting about the trip to Washington, DC in 2020. We will have a more firm itinerary than what we presented briefly at the fall meeting, forms to be signed, hand out payment plans, and begin accepting deposits ($120) on the trip if anyone is ready to do so. We would like to have those no later than the end of November if possible so we can have an accurate count as we work on our contracts with our travel agent. Following that deposit, in January, we’ll look for $85/month over 13 payments and a final payment of $25 or the remaining balance in March of 2020. We take a break on payments in the summer and December.

All current band students who are 8th grade through 11th grade are eligible to go on this trip. Students must remain in band through the trip to be eligible to attend. No Pass/No Play does not affect this trip as it is taken over the summer. Please make plans to attend this meeting even if you are unsure if you will want your student to go!

Bands of America Super Regional San Antonio:

Friday is our performance for the preliminary round of the BOA Super Regional in San Antonio at the Alamodome. This has become one of the largest marching band competitions in the country with 84 bands competing in preliminary competition over Friday/Saturday. Our students will perform at 11:45am on Friday and we hope that you will join us for it! We do need a number of additional parent volunteers for this contest if possible due to some of our junior high helpers being involved in a basketball tournament that day. If you can help please let Mr. Rash or Mr. Williams know in advance. Tickets otherwise are available through TicketMaster.com, or from the box office at the Alamodome. I believe admission is $19 for one day of prelims. Please note that the Alamodome has a clear bag policy.

Once we finish performing we are going to load everything back up in the truck/buses and give the members about 90 minutes to wander the souvenir merchandise, hit the concessions, or catch a band or two. We’ll go eat a late lunch/early dinner at 3pm before we head back to meet the team in Taft for the football game. (3rd Quarter we will have pizza for students) Saturday morning we will return to the Alamodome to watch the rest of prelims that we can catch and see the awards ceremonies. Finals occur that evening which we will only stay for if we earn Class A Champion so we could perform in exhibition. Otherwise, we will head to a mall for students to hit a food court and then return home sometime around 8:30-9pm.

We are covering students meals on Friday (including breakfast) but will need them to cover theirs on Saturday. Please contact me if you have any questions on the schedule below.

Friday, November 2nd:

Saturday, November 3rd:

Student Eligibility:

This fall we have had more issues with eligibility than we’ve had in a long time with the high school band in particular. The current 6 weeks ends on Thursday and all students must be passing their classes by then to be eligible to participate in the final home game on November 9th. According to TEA students must meet the No Pass/No Play requirements of no grades below a 70 in any class. Please help support your student by checking their grades regularly. If you see grades below a 70 many times it is because of a missing assignment that a teacher may still be willing to accept. I show students every year that a single ‘0’ takes three ‘100s’ to get a passing grade. When I see grades below a 40 percent it usually means multiple 0’s are in that class grade book!

Additionally we also have our local eligibility policy with absences. Any student with three or more unexcused absences in a six weeks will be considered ineligible by the district as well. They may regain at the three weeks by having no unexcused absences, or at the next six-weeks by having fewer than 3. It’s imperative that we have students at school, but if they must miss please make sure you send a note so the school can document the absence as excused!

Band Hall Schedule:

Monday:             6:30pm-8:30pm – Evening Marching Rehearsal (Wear Blue colored Shirt)

Tuesday:            4:15pm – Band Hall Closes

Wednesday:       4:30pm-6:00pm – Evening Marching Rehearsal

Thursday:          6:30pm-8:30pm – Evening Marching Rehearsal and Load for Contest

Friday:               5:00am – Students at Band Hall

11:45am – Performance at BOA Super Regional

4:15pm – Depart for Taft HS

6:45pm – Arrive at Taft HS

7:30pm – Game Begins

~10:30pm – Return to Odem Band Hall

Saturday:          7:15am – Students at Odem Band Hall to Depart for Day 2

11:00am-3:45pm – Watch Bands/Awards at 3:45pm

4:00pm – Depart for Mall*

~6:15pm – Depart San Antonio

~8:45pm – Arrive at Odem Band Hall

* Would change if we made finals

This is a busy week as we compete in our last event, please let us know if you have any questions or concerns!