During new student orientation 2024 for 9th Grade incoming students, Principal Karen Finnesand encouraged all students to join Marching Band and she told all the assembled parents and children that “Marching Band is family” and it was all a lie, she cheated 30 students out of once in a lifetime Marching Band education and she cheated the 30 parents out of $1,500 each (i.e. $45,000 in total) , all so that she can win Marching Band competitions and make her resume look good, so if you are a parent of incoming 9th Grade students, don’t believe her, she is not telling the truth!
On October 5 2024, 200 out of 230 students from Seven Lakes Marching Band will be competing in the BOA South Houston Regional at Challenger Stadium in Katy, TX. If you ask why only 200 out of 230 students are in the competition, it is because Director John Mays goofed up when he estimated the number of students who would join Marching Band. See, he made the competition program in Spring and at that time he estimated that 200 students would be in Marching Band. But this year Katy has a very large number of students who love music, so in July John Mays found out that the actual number of students enrolled in Marching Band is 230. John Mays had more than one month of summer vacation to change his competition program to 230 students but he was either too LAZY to bother or he really just doesn’t care, so he simply cut the extra 30 students. Now during class they are sitting like the picture above.
Band Director John Mays selects students for the Marching Band Competition team based on Sex.
This year, there are 14 9th grade students in Marching Band who play Flute, and of these 8 students are girls and 6 students are boys. So initially John Mays selected all 8 girls for the Marching Band Competition team and he cut 4 boys from the Competition team and the remaining 2 boys were put in “shadow” positions, meaning if the girls who are selected screws up, then these 2 boys may be selected. Then one of the cut boy Flute students had to “challenge” a girl Flute student for her place (like the movie Mad Max: Thunderdome), and then he won a place in the Competition team.
The chance that ALL 8 girls students are better than ALL 6 boy students is basically ZERO, yet Principal Finnesand supports John Mays because he is winning Competitions because more girls on the Marching Band Competition team looks nice on the field, but this is bad for the boy students. Principal Finnesand is a Texas Educator and it is sickening that she allows this sexual discrimination. I have complained to Katy ISD and the Department of Education but I know they will do nothing.
Principal Finnesand and Band Director John Mays are committing Apartheid against 30 innocent students who did nothing wrong!
According to John Mays all the students have to go for the competitions, but these 30 students will not compete and so they have to learn by carrying the equipment onto the field. During practice these 30 students have to sit on the side and watch the 200 students move in formation and at the same time these 30 students hardly move at all, so exactly what are they learning ? John Mays is cheating them of the marching portion of their education in Marching Band.
I complained to Superintendent Gregorski of Katy ISD and then my wife and I had a meeting with Director John Mays, Principal Finnesand, Assistant Superintendent Christopher Morgan and Executive Director of Fine Arts George Damon Archer and here are some quotes from them:
- Principal Finnesand says these 30 students don’t matter, because “it is varsity” so students have to learn that they can get cut, even if it is not their fault. She compared the Marching Band to the football team.
- I replied that a football team has a fixed number of students, whereas for Marching band there is no fixed number, John Mays just chooses the number of students in the formation and he can easily change it, he just doesn’t want to.
- Executive Director Damon Archer said if there are 200 students on the field it is safe, but if there are 230 students on the field then accidents can happen.
- I told him this is nonsense. The difference between 200 and 230 is so small you cannot even see the difference on the field. And if Archer is suggesting that some students are bad at Marching, isn’t that what they are in school to learn ?
- Assistant Superintendent Christopher Morgan said “other schools are doing this too”.
- I asked him, if everyone is drinking poison, would you do that too ? If the system is wrong, it needs to be changed and that is what I’m asking for.
- Director John Mays said that these cut 30 students are able to learn during competitions because they are moving the equipment for the other students and that their practice is OPTIONAL, so they don’t have to come for practice if they don’t want to.
- My wife replied that there is no OPTIONAL in education, that ALL students should be given the chance to learn, and I agree, and I think it is nasty to ask the cut students to go to the competitions to move equipment for the other students, this is intentionally making them feel like losers, even though the mistake was made by John Mays who was too incompetent to correctly calculate the number of students for the Marching Band Competition program.
Principal Finnesand told a story about a student who tried be selected for the competition team for 3 years, she was not chosen for competition in 9th grade, then she was again not chosen for competition in 10th grade and then in 11th grade she was still not chosen for competition to play her instrument, but she was made a drum major. Principal Finnesand said this showed that when the student keeps trying, then they can succeed.
I though the story actually proved what I am saying, some poor student who loves to play music was not allowed to play and march in competition for two years, and then the third year she is standing on a dais conducting, but is still not playing and marching, so that means in three years she still did not learn how to march and play at the same time, imagine how bad that girl feels right now, this is a failure of Seven Lakes to provide this student education, NOT a success as Principal Finnesand seems to think!
When parents look at Seven Lakes Marching Band, they hear that it wins many competitions, but what I see is that Principal Finnesand and Director John Mays are so interested in winning competitions, that they are harming the students every year because they are not willing to include ALL students in the competition, this is morally wrong, the important thing is to educate ALL the children EQUALLY, and NOT only to try to win competitions at any cost.
I submitted a complaint to the Texas Education Agency but they refused to help us 30 parents, the TEA said they don’t care about us !
Someone sent me the following posted by “DoNotBelongHere” on Reddit, and I think all parents should read it (it is so good), it tells you that this problem is everywhere in the USA:
