MS Band Director

For music educators - By music educators

Best Practices for Band Handbooks

Directors,
It is time consuming to google middle school band handbook for ideas, but everyone has probably done so. Only to find that there are over 20,000 postings and pdf's. Please share your favorite handbook links as well as your handbook practices here on this discussion and we can, perhaps, cut down time for everyone with regard to creating the very best band policies and delivery systems possible.

Attachments:

Band Handbook OCSA 2008-2009.pdf, 776 KB

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matt Doublestein on August 27, 2008 at 3:04pm

I've converted to an fully online band handbook fro our program. Now the text as well as the forms are online. Entries are dumped right into a spreadsheet so there's next to nothing to enter manually! It's great stuff, and all free with a very limited knowledge of HTML and GoogleDocs! Please feel free to explore our handbook. Enjoy!

http://www.zcs.k12.in.us/individual/zwmsmusic/band/Handbook/handboo...

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Permalink Reply by Russ Weaver on September 9, 2008 at 9:37pm

Hey Matt,
This looks great! Congratulations on going digital!

Russ Weaver

Matt said:

I've converted to an fully online band handbook fro our program. Now the text as well as the forms are online. Entries are dumped right into a spreadsheet so there's next to nothing to enter manually! It's great stuff, and all free with a very limited knowledge of HTML and GoogleDocs! Please feel free to explore our handbook. Enjoy!

http://www.zcs.k12.in.us/individual/zwmsmusic/band/Handbook/handboo...

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Permalink Reply by Matt Doublestein on September 10, 2008 at 10:42am

Thanks Russ. The most useful part for me is the online forms dumping right into spreadsheets. Not only that, but this year we had a much higher percentage of students/families complete the handbook on time than in the past when we used paper. I think the ease of use is pretty high.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Weaver on September 10, 2008 at 5:36pm

Matt,
In continuing with the notion (and eventual list) of BEST PRACTICES, what would you say, within your handbook, was the most effective content that, perhaps, streamlined the whole process of information dissemination with regard to parents? Would this be the spreadsheet data component or is it perhaps something else? I know for our program we use charms and the data is updated by parents in their profile page. This takes it off of us to update when parents change a cell number or address. This can then be printed out and/or saved as an excel spreadsheet.

Russ

PS Going digital is our first BEST PRACTICE with regard to band handbooks.

Matt said:

Thanks Russ. The most useful part for me is the online forms dumping right into spreadsheets. Not only that, but this year we had a much higher percentage of students/families complete the handbook on time than in the past when we used paper. I think the ease of use is pretty high.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Doublestein on September 11, 2008 at 8:21am

For us, the band handbook is a lot more than a way to gather student information. We also use Charms for that function and the many others it provides - we love the Charms system! Our handbook introduces families to the grading policy (and collects digital signatures indicating that information is understood), walks them through the online practice log system, and perhaps most importantly for us is where parents order band uniforms (shirts) and method books. Sorting through 300+ order forms each year and accounting money is a daunting task, so with the online orders I can avoid it all together and just edit and sort the spreadsheets. I only enter received money information. It has saved us HOURS of time that we can use to focus more on special projects, teaching and kids.

To make it simple, the most effective content has been the order forms. Not only do they save us time, but they are familiar to our increasingly digitally-literate community and save enormous amounts of paper.

Thanks for this opportunity to discuss it Russ. I would love it if folks had ideas for use of these forms and suggestions for improving our use as well.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Weaver on November 5, 2009 at 7:26am

Handbook looks great! We are also fully digital and we post ours to Charms. I really don't believe that there is a better way to deliver relevant material to our clients. I believe it is safe to say that "digital" band handbooks are one of MSBandDirector's BEST PRACTICES.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Weaver on September 11, 2008 at 8:31pm

Matt,
This sounds like something I might want to try. Can you walk me step by step through, say, one of these collection procedures that involve a spreadsheet? I have never used the GoogleDocs and would like to learn.

Russ

Matt said:

For us, the band handbook is a lot more than a way to gather student information. We also use Charms for that function and the many others it provides - we love the Charms system! Our handbook introduces families to the grading policy (and collects digital signatures indicating that information is understood), walks them through the online practice log system, and perhaps most importantly for us is where parents order band uniforms (shirts) and method books. Sorting through 300+ order forms each year and accounting money is a daunting task, so with the online orders I can avoid it all together and just edit and sort the spreadsheets. I only enter received money information. It has saved us HOURS of time that we can use to focus more on special projects, teaching and kids.

To make it simple, the most effective content has been the order forms. Not only do they save us time, but they are familiar to our increasingly digitally-literate community and save enormous amounts of paper.

Thanks for this opportunity to discuss it Russ. I would love it if folks had ideas for use of these forms and suggestions for improving our use as well.

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Permalink Reply by William C. Kee on November 4, 2009 at 8:13am

Here's the West Valley Middle handbook.

Attachments:

WVMS Handbook copy.doc, 60 KB

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Permalink Reply by Matt Doublestein on November 4, 2009 at 8:20am

Here's a link to our band handbook - it's completely online. No forms to bring in to school, no paper to pass out. All online forms. We aren't allowed to do online payments just yet, but I'm hopeful! The first page of the handbook includes a video about how it works, so that might be the place to start. It's a YouTube video though, so it might be blocked for you at work. Hope it's helpful!

http://sites.google.com/a/zwmsbands.org/zwmsb/zwms-bands-handbook