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At my high school we have to pay about 400 a year to march, and then about 50-100 to go on the overnight contest trip, plus our uniform to be cleaned etc. anyways after marching season we sell fruit which usually you can make alot of you money back on, but we have a thing with kroger to where some of the money spent goes to our band account, and pretty much cause Me and my sisters are both in band (me trumpet they are guard) Anyways, we buy enough at kroger to pay for about half of our fee's. Since im out of work I end up selling fruit to make money for the spring band trip which costs alot so I sell fruit to pay for it, and do alot of chores around the house to get money to spend awhile im there, oh and we get grades, its just marching band is mandatory. You are also required to perfrom cause that counts as a grade. Apparently we now have to raise money and donations for a new trailer and new set of uniforms...Sports are paid for so if you make it your good to go.

Edited by a marching trumpet
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There are a lot of BOA bands in my area charging $1000+. It just isn't that rare a practice.

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*waggles hand* I always looked at rehearsal time as study and performances of ANY type as the tests.

Who remembers when we used to get PE credit??

Yeah figures my junior year they make it to where 2 years of band count as a PE credit, and I already took my year made a bunch of us very mad.

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My son's schooll system has had MB, Winter Guard, Winter Percussion, Jazz Band, etc... all as extra-curricular for years, and as such has had fees associated. Some of the fees are quite high, but they do go mostly to pay for the trips. For the MB this is quite expensive as we have some long distances to travel for some of the USSBA shows.

The Sports programs here also have the same pay-to-play, though the fees are sometimes lower. However, thier trips are also much more local than the Band trips, so I don't see it as unfair at this point. The problem is, that it does probably price some people out of the music programs. With a son, now in Drum Corps, our music bills for every year are up in the $5-7K/year range when you add everything up. Not everyone can afford that.

Unfortunately, music has a high cost associated with it to play at a high level. I don't know that there's another solution than pay to play, because taxes certainly can't go higher where I am.

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Where I live (Chicago, Il suburbs) at our school district, band is curricular. Marching and concert bands. From first day of school until mid October when marching season ends, our two bands are combined and rehearse the marching show. After that it's split among 2 bands, concert and symphonic with jazz band as an extra curricular after school session. Our fees are $26.50 per semester for band. We do have a booster program that provides extras for anything we need, mostly from fundraising, however we do ask parents to pay for supplies needed for the kids such as marching supplies such as gloves, shoes, gauntlets, as well as a cleaning fee for both uniforms, marching and concert. The director's also have a budget to use, although I don't know how much that is. Band is graded subject just like math and science.

On the sports side - extra curricular sports, i.e. football, tennis, volleyball, etc, all have an athletic fee if you want to participate. I don't know if all sports are same price, but I do know that volleyball is $61.00 to play. I suppose if you want to play: whether it is band or a sport, you will pay something to do so from equipment to fees.

It's a small price to pay for the opportunity to interest your child in something other than video games and television. Just my opinion, but I imagine a lot of parents out there would agree with me.

Proud Mom of 3 boys all marching together! GO PIONEER !!

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around here, no one pays for in school band, but for marching band or indoor....yeah they do

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  • 4 weeks later...

I go to high school in a pretty well off area and everything costs money. I'm pretty sure that the cheapest extra-curricular is around $100-$150. Band itself is somewhere in the $400-$500 range per year, not including a spring trip and an out-of-state marching competition. I think it's worth it. You get what you pay for.

We have awesome equipment in every area. A several thousand dollar portable PA system, nice uniforms, plenty of horns that are all in great condition, plenty of techs, great show design, free private lessons, and I can go on and on. It sometimes seems like the band works on a blank check. We're really spoiled.

Edited by OdeToArsenal47
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