CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

The History of the Band Program at James Monroe High School

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of Master of Music in Music, Conducting

By

Ryan Gonzales

May 2020

The thesis of Ryan Gonzales is approved:

______Dr. Katherine Baker Date

______Dr. Diane Roscetti Date

______Dr. Larry Stoffel, Chair Date

California State University Northridge

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Table of Contents

Signature page ii

List of Figures iv

Abstract v

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

Chapter 2 The 1960s 3

Chapter 3 The 1970s 18

Chapter 4 The 1980s 36

Chapter 5 The 1990s 45

Chapter 6 The 2000s 54

Chapter 7 2010 – Present 61

Chapter 8 Conclusion 68

Work Cited 69

Appendix A 73

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List of Figures

figure 2.1 Monroe Marching Band, 1965 8 figure 2.2 Monroe Marching Band Rose Parade, 1966 10 figure 2.3 Monroe High School Dance Band, 1965 14 figure 3.1 Sylmar Earthquake 23 figure 3.2 Monroe Marching Band, 1972 26 figure 3.3 Boogie Woogie Band 28 figure 3.4 Rogers Instruments Advertisement, 1972 29 figure 3.5 Marching Band Shako 1979, Current 31 figure 3.6 Marching Band 1979, 1979 L.A. Forum 31 figure 4.1 Monroe Marching Band, 1982 40 figure 4.2 Bob’s Big Boy Statue 44 figure 5.1 Monroe Band 1990 50 figure 5.2 Frances Miranda, 1991 51 figure 5.3 Monroe Band 1995 52 figure 6.1 Monroe Marching Band, 2001 54 figure 6.2 Monroe Marching Band Modern Uniforms, 2010 60 figure 6.3 Monroe Marching Band “Nutcracker Uniforms” 60 figure 7.1 Monroe Marching Band, 2018 61

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Abstract

The History of the Band Program at James Monroe High School

By

Ryan Gonzales

Master of Music in Music, Conducting

The James Monroe High School band program, in North Hills, CA, has a long and storied tradition of excellence. The band program at “Monroe” High School began in the inaugural year of the school opening in 1959. Over the years, the band program has experienced a multitude of changes that reflect the changing landscape of the San Fernando Valley. As with any school from this time, there are not only tales of success and excellence but also tales of failure. Monroe’s band program has a history that reflects cultural and political demographic of the surrounding community.

Through an oral history and telling about the music program as well as photographs, videos, and yearbooks, the incredible story of the band program at Jams Monroe High School will be examined. Additionally, utilizing a multitude of resources not limited to but including, census data, newspaper articles, and the many resources available on the changing landscape of the San Fernando Valley, the story of the changing demographic of the North Hills community and the impact that it has had on the band program at Monroe will also be examined.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

James Monroe High School located in Los Angeles, California in the neighborhood of

North Hills, and has a long and storied tradition. Their ongoing motto of “Building on a

Tradition of Excellence” is a good reflection of the band and its history. Monroe, as its students, alumni, and staff affectionately call it, has been a stabilizing force in an unstable and changing landscape in the San Fernando Valley since 1959.

The band program at Monroe, like the demographic in the North Hills community, has changed considerably since the 1960s. Monroe High School stands almost unchanged since it opened its doors. In its sixty-year history, the music department has almost always had a concert band, marching band, and jazz band. The marching band especially has enjoyed a tremendous amount of success and has provided a life changing experience for its members. The first fifty years of the program emphasized showmanship and entertainment and made marching band the main priority of the band program.

Not only has the demographic changed in North Hills, but the name of the neighborhood itself has also changed. North Hills has seen its name changed twice since 1915. Mission Acres, as it was called in the early 1900s, was a predominantly farming community with orange orchards and many other rural facets that would be almost unrecognizable today. “North Hills started out as Mission Acres in the early 1900s, with chicken and rabbit farms, vegetable gardens, walnut groves and fruit trees on a multitude of 1-acre plots. Fruit and walnut trees still line the streets and dot backyards.”1 Today this part of the San Fernando Valley, with its proximity to California State University Northridge and the 405 freeway has a constant hustle and bustle with a lot of traffic both pedestrian and automobile, and it seems it is a long way

1 Michelle Hoffman, “Treasures amid Valley Bustle,” Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2004, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-feb-01-re-guide1-story.html.

1 removed from its time as farmland. Students today would not know or recognize the landscape from sixty years ago.

In the 1920s, the community had a name change, which would turn out to be the first of many. “Residents renamed the area Sepulveda in 1927 in honor of Francisco Sepulveda, a Los

Angeles settler and former mayor.”2 Much of the San Fernando Valley still bears the Sepulveda name. Sepulveda Boulevard is a major street in the North Hills area, and if you listen to morning radio, it is almost impossible to miss the discussion of traffic in the Sepulveda Pass. Francisco

Sepulveda has made a lasting impact on the San Fernando Valley as well as North Hills.

In order to tell the story of the Monroe band program, the sixty-year history of the James

Monroe High School Band program will be broken down by decades. Newspaper articles, yearbooks, interviews (teachers and students), YouTube videos, and photographs, will provide a narrative of the social, political, and cultural circumstances that helped to shape the program as well as the successes of the program.

To better, understand the band program through the different time periods it is crucial to understand what was happening in the community. Schools are a direct reflection of the communities that surround them. Following is a history of the school population and demographic, as well as what was happening in the surrounding community. To understand the social, political, and cultural environment helps to understand the band program.

2 Ibid.

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Chapter 2: The 1960s

The 1960s at Monroe High School mirrored that of the rest of the country. There was segregation in the community of Sepulveda and the San Fernando Valley in spite of Brown vs the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling in 1954. In interviews with alumni from Monroe

High School as well as staff it came to light that, “The children of the laborers that picked the fruit and worked the farmland of Sepulveda were not permitted to attend James Monroe High

School, and were forced to attend San Fernando Middle School.”3 Monroe was an all white school when it first opened its doors in 1959. To really understand the culture of the valley and the country at this time we have to go back to five court cases that helped shaped the social and political landscape of the time: Plessy vs. Ferguson; Independent School District vs. Salvatierra;

Mendez vs. Westminster; Delgado vs. Bastrop Independent School District; Brown vs the Board of Education.

Plessy vs Fergusson, also known as “Separate but Equal” is the case in which, “The

Supreme Court upheld the Louisiana statute that required equal but separate railway seating. The decision for Plessy vs Ferguson relied heavily on the fact that the federal and state laws requiring racially separate school facilities had gone unchallenged.”4 The valley at this time was segregated and held to the Plessy ruling, an unjust and racially motivated ruling. It is important to note that it was not just African American students that were being denied access to a quality education, it was also Latino students. For the Latino students the struggle began in Texas, with

Independent School District vs. Salvatierra. “Judicial opposition to segregation of Latinos goes back to a 1930 Texas case, Independent School District v. Salvatierra, wherein the Del Rio

3 Ryan Gonzales, James Monroe High School Alumni Survey, December 2019. 4 Benjamin Kizer, “The Impact of Brown Vs. Board of Education,” Gonzaga Law Review, (January 1, 1967): 1-2. https://gonzagalawreview.com/article/11808-the-impact-of-brown-vs-board-of-education.

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Independent School District was charged with separating Mexican American children merely because of their race.”5 Although they lost this case, Latinos were fighting for the right to a quality education in Texas, and later that fight would carry on to Orange County, California with a different outcome.

Similar to the case in Texas, Mendez vs. Westminster, 1943, is the U.S. District Court case in which Mexican families sued the school district in Orange County over discrimination.

Five Mexican American families took four school districts in Orange County to court, challenging the “separate but equal” education their American-born children were getting in Mexican schools. The parents knew their children were treated as second-class citizens: taught by underpaid teachers, forced to use books and desks discarded by Anglo students, relegated to shoddy school buildings where the classrooms had so little light that reading was almost impossible.6

Although the five families ended up winning the decision, things did not start to change in the

Valley until the 1970s.

The next case that almost immediately followed the Mendez U.S. District Court case was

Delgado vs. Bastrop Independent School District. “Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School

District (1948) followed Mendez by stating that the district's segregative acts violated the 14th

Amendment. Further, where the segregation of Mexican Americans was more by separate schools, the court directed that separate classes for non-English proficient students must be held on the same campus.”7 This turned out to be an important ruling, because at the time students were bussed to different schools based on being English Language Learners as a way to defy desegregation movements. At this time in the valley, and across the country, Latino students

5 Reynaldo A. Contreras et al. “The Impact of Brown on the Education of Latinos,” The Journal of Negro Education 63, no. 3 (1994): https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.csun.edu/stable/pdf/2967197.pdf?refreqid= excelsior%3Aa55fdd3d1f3622142102b625522e3468. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid.

4 were not permitted to attend Monroe and the reasons that were sited were due to English

Language Learners needing to be together as well as ancestry.

Both Mendez and Delgado helped to affect Brown vs. the Board of Education. In the

Mendez case, it was not just the facilities that the families were challenging.

In California, the Mexican American families and their attorney David Marcus told the courts that equal facilities would not satisfy them. It was segregation itself that was unconstitutional, they said. Separating Mexican American children from their Anglo peers did them “great and irreparable” harm, by making them feel so inferior that their ability to learn was affected.8

It was the notion that the students’ ability to learn was affected by the segregation that paralleled

Brown vs the Board of Education.

Brown vs. the Board of Education is the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned

Plessy vs. Ferguson and stated that separate was not actually equal. “While it had a dramatic impact on the quality of education for African American youth in the United States, Brown also became a major force for improving the educational experience of other ethnic and racial groups as well, notably Latinos.”9 Unfortunately, for the Latino’s in the valley there was not a Mendez case standing up for their rights to education. Additionally, as important as “Brown vs the Board of Education” was, it did not happen overnight. “The changes for Brown were not implemented immediately. In 1966, 396,654 whites were enrolled in LAUSD schools; by 1980, only 127,281 would be enrolled. It was precisely during this period that Los Angeles public schools were engaged in a very public struggle over school desegregation. Although Los Angeles schools would remain highly segregated until the 1980s.”10 Monroe high school is opening its doors at a

8Philippa Strum, “How Mexican Immigrants Ended ‘Separate but Equal’ in California,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2016, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0302-strum-mendez-case-20160302-story.html. 9 Kizer, “The Impact of Brown Vs. Board of Education.” 10 Albert M. Camarillo, “Cities of Color: The New Racial Frontier in California’s Minority-Majority Cities,” Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 1 (1994): https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.csun.edu/stable/pdf/10.1525/phr.2007.76.1.1 .pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A3d9f7205b5dc37b4ca298a9be9e35c9d.

5 very tumultuous time in Los Angeles and the country. Sepulveda was a very middle class town with few people of color, and when Monroe opened its student population would be a reflection of that.

James Monroe High School, home of the Vikings, opened its doors for the first time in

1959.11 The students were referred to as “Vic and Val” in the yearbook and were welcomed aboard to make their journey to Valhalla with their fellow Vikings.12 According to Jeff Spector

Monroe alumni from 1968, at this time, “Sepulveda reflected that of the greater San Fernando

Valley area and was still very much a predominantly white middleclass city. The majority of the families living in Sepulveda at the time were either middle or upper middle class. The fathers worked as engineers at places such as, Rocketdyne and Lockheed Martin. Most of the mothers were either teachers or nurses but many were stay at home mothers.13 This was a community, at the time, which had money and stability. The students and their parents had cars, and the families were homeowners.

The majority of the school was predominantly white students because regardless of

Brown vs the Board of Education, Latino and black students were not permitted to attend James

Monroe High School when it opened. Latino students were instead bussed to San Fernando High

School, which at the time was a middle school.14As stated previously, it was still believed at the time that Latino students should be educated together and separate from their white classmates.

Generally, the placement of Spanish surnamed students into separate schools or classrooms was an arbitrary action that lacked due process. No appropriate or systematic language assessment was made of these students for the purpose of pedagogical placement. Children with Spanish surnames who did not have a language problem that is,

11 James Monroe High School, Valhalla (Sepulveda, California: 1959), 1, James Monroe High School Library. 12 Ibid 13 Jeff Spector, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 12, 2020. 14 Gonzales, James Monroe High School Alumni Survey

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those who were English proficient were automatically assigned to schools and classrooms composed of students of like ancestry.15

Regardless of ability or language skills, students were educated together based on their surname.

Furthermore, students did not receive the same quality of instruction at San Fernando High

School as the students at Monroe. John Cosentino is a San Fernando Valley native and staff member at Monroe High School. Cosentino states, “The conditions at San Fernando were not like they were other places. The conditions were poor, the teachers weren’t the best and the conditions were a mess.”16 Students of color at this time were receiving a less than quality education and were kept out of Monroe deliberately.

When interviewing the students of who attended Monroe during the 60s they spoke about the demographic stating, the demographic was, “Pretty much all white. There was one black student on campus, and he was simultaneously the Varsity Track star, and the Varsity Baseball star”17 This quote is an example that can help depict the school environment at this time. Very few people of color attended Monroe during this time.

15 Contreras, “The Impact of Brown on the Education of Latinos,” 471. 16 Jeff Spector, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 12, 2020. 17 Ibid.

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figure 2.1 James Monroe High School Marching Band, 1965

Despite the racial tensions outside the school, the band program inside the school was flourishing. The band program during the 1960s is arguably the strongest that the band has been in its sixty-year existence. There were many things to celebrate for the band program during this time.

The classes during this time were concert band, marching band, dance band, and theatre support. The total number of students participating in the band program was approximately 170.The program offered marching band in the fall semester and concert band in the spring semester, a tradition that is similar for most band programs even today. The marching band did not have a front ensemble, which is common for bands of this time. The only types of mallet instruments that were played were the bell lyres, or marching glockenspiel. The bell lyres were performed by violinists from the orchestra to help fill out the ensemble, additionally, the orchestra students wanted to participate and be in the band, and this was the way they could contribute.18

18 Jeff Spector, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 12, 2020.

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It is important to note that marching bands of this time were different from today’s marching band. The biggest difference being that the shows changed weekly, unlike today’s school marching bands, which work on one field show from June until November, the Monroe

Marching Band learned a brand new show each week. It was a point of pride with the marching band students and director to provide an entertaining show that was new each week.

Repertoire that the marching band played during this time was mostly classic rock. One particular show of interest was the “Cream Show.” The band Cream featured lead guitarist Eric

Clapton, and their song “Sunshine of Your Love” was especially popular with the youth of the time. The music director at Monroe during this time took advantage of this opportunity and arranged the song for the marching band. “The big highlight of the show was that it featured five drum set players on the marching band field all playing “Sunshine of Your Love” together.”19

According to students, this is something that had never been done before. Furthermore, this speaks to the showmanship of the marching band at this time, as well as the drive to play relevant and exciting music.

Although the half time shows were popular, what Monroe was most known for during the

1960s was their 1966 Rose Parade performance. Ron Logan, the music director of the time, took the band program to audition for the Rose Parade and they were accepted. The Rose Parade was on every channel on television at the time and was viewed by millions. Not only was Monroe in the Rose Parade in 1966, according to alumni, “Monroe was the first Los Angeles City School

Band to participate in the Rose Parade.”20 This is an incredible feat when you consider how new the program was at the time. The band program was only seven years old, however, this

19 Ibid. 20 Sheryl Philips, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 1, 2020.

9 performance would help to establish and maintain a momentum that would carry the program for the next several decades.

figure 2.2 Monroe Marching Band 1966, Rose Parade

The photo above provided by alumni Sheryl Philips shows the Monroe marching band at the Rose Parade in Pasadena in 1966. Student Janice Stocks, class of 1968, designed the marching band uniforms worn by Monroe in the Rose Parade. “Janice was an art student who was a very talented artist at Monroe. Janice would go on later to receive a full scholarship to Art

Center Pasadena.”21 She was not in the band at Monroe but her younger brother Jerome Stocks was. According to Jerome Stocks, “The jackets for the marching band uniforms at this time were unique. Buttoned from left to right, the letter M was displayed; buttoned from right to left, the letter V was displayed. Prior to these uniforms, the students would wear dark pants with a white

21 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020.

10 top.”22 Janice Stocks made an incredible impact in designing the uniforms for the marching band, and what an accomplishment for a high school student.

Mr. John Deichman was the first director for Monroe High School and was director from

1960 until 1964. John Deichman is a name that is unknown by many but was a hugely influential force in shaping Los Angeles Unified arts education, as well as the image of the Los Angeles

Unified School District.

John Deichman left Monroe and became the Director of Performing Arts for LAUSD. Deichman in 1973 would create the Los Angeles Unified All City Marching Band. The All City Marching Band has been representing the Los Angeles Unified School District in the Rose Parade for the last 47 years and has helped to create a cohesion across the district. Students from as far as San Pedro to the San Fernando Valley have a chance to perform together in the All City Marching Band thanks to John Deichman’s legacy. In addition to current students having the opportunity to perform in the Rose Parade, they also perform for the L.A. Rams football games and at Disneyland.23

In addition to John Deichman, Monroe High School was also fortunate to have another influential pioneer in music. A man that has changed modern drumming, Remo Belli founder of

Remo was a drum instructor at Monroe High School during the time John Deichman was the director.24 Remo is credited with creating the mylar drumhead and coated drumheads. “Remo was not the first to create a synthetic drumhead as is commonly believed: he was the first to successfully market the synthetic drumhead.”25 Without Remo, drumming would be very different today. Many school programs use Remo drumheads to date for their marching percussion. Furthermore, it is incredible to think of Remo creating a design that is used and that is copied by many manufacturers to date. In addition, he was able to start an internationally successful company while working as the drumline instructor at James Monroe High School.

22 Ibid. 23 Anthony White, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 6, 2020. 24 Ibid. 25 “History of the Drumhead,” Remo, https://support.remo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033104892-History-of-the- Drumhead.

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After John Deichman left Monroe High School to support the arts in LAUSD at the district level, Ron Logan was the next music director for Monroe from 1965 until 1967. Mr.

Logan was the director of the Monroe band the year they marched in the Rose Parade and the

Grand Marshal that year was Walt Disney. Mr. Logan has a very strong connection to the Disney

Corporation, Mr. Logan was a skilled trumpet player and played trumpet at Disneyland before his time at Monroe. “Ron had the opportunity to meet Walt Disney three times when he was a college-age trumpet player at Disneyland, and even performed as part of the Disney-produced pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. One of Ron’s fondest early Disney memories includes being a fanfare trumpeter for the Candlelight Processional at

Disneyland.”26 Logan would later go on to be a professor at Long Beach City College and would help to create a partnership with Disney that would be long lasting and fruitful for both parties.

While he (Logan) was a music professor at Long Beach City College, he came up with the idea of putting together a two-week pilot program where college-age student musicians would perform on Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland. The group eventually became the All-American College Marching Band, an educational program that still exists today, bringing college students from around the United States to perform at Disney’s parks!27

Clearly, his time at Disney was beneficial for Mr. Logan and he found a way to provide a similar experience for college students on a larger scale.

After his time at Long Beach City College, Logan went on to work at Disney as an executive, his titles at Disney included,

“Executive Vice President, Executive Producer, for Walt Disney Entertainment. Logan was responsible for creating, casting, and producing all live entertainment products for The Walt Disney Company, including the Disneyland Resort, the Walt Disney World Resort, Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Resort Paris, The Disney Institute, Disney

26 Francesca Scrimgeour, “7 Spectacular Facts about Disney Legend Ron Logan,” D23, updated September 26, 2018, https://d23.com/spectacular-facts-about-disney-legend-ron-logan/. 27 Ibid.

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Business Productions, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Entertainment Productions, and Walt Disney Entertainment Worldwide.”28

Logan went on to revolutionize entertainment for Disney. Disneyland is associated with fantastic productions and showmanship and that is in large part attributed to the vision of Ron Logan.

In addition to theatrical entertainment, Logan worked on all aspects of the shows for

Disney. Logan had a dream of creating firework shows so impressive and large that the entire park could see them. “The Disney team went on to develop electronic chips that ignite fireworks at different heights. This allowed the fireworks to not only reach new heights, but also to sync with the music, bringing Ron’s vision to a reality!”29 Disney is known now for its fireworks and theatrical shows. Mr. Logan is responsible for the entertainment that we experience when we visit Disney parks. “He was also the Executive Vice President of the Walt Disney Special Events

Group, Executive Vice President of Disney Special Programs, Incorporated and the first

President & Founder of Disney Theatrical Productions, which produced Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast – A New Musical” on Broadway and around the world.”30 The theatrical legacy the

Logan built at Disney is incredible. In addition, if that was not big enough, Mr. Logan helped produce many of the Super bowl halftime shows in the early 2000s.31 Mr. Logan is a legend in the entertainment industry and has contributed to entertainment as we know it today in a very meaningful way.

28 “Ronald Logan,” Rosen College of Hospitality Management, University of central Florida, accessed March 10, 2020, https://hospitality.ucf.edu/person/ronald-logan/. 29Scrimgeour, “7 Spectacular Facts about Disney Legend Ron Logan”. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.

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figure 2.3 Dance Band 1965

The band program under Logan’s direction offered many different ensembles. One ensemble from this time is the dance band. The photograph above features the dance band from the Monroe yearbook from 1965. Jazz bands were not widely accepted at this time and dance bands were considered a more acceptable offering during this time. The dance band was a smaller group of students, approximately twenty-five, and they would play at school events and for school dances. The dance band would also play for musicals at Monroe; according to alumni

Jeff Spector, “The most popular and well-attended musicals that was performed was Bye Bye

Birdie, but the dance band/theatre, support group also performed West Side Story.32

The marching band was known for its exciting halftime shows, and the dance band was known for the musicals, but the concert band was quite different. The concert band was playing

32 Jeff Spector, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 12, 2020.

14 major concert band works. Members of the group recall playing Shostakovich’s “Symphony No.

5” arranged for concert band. Additionally, members recall performing major works such as

Gustav Holst's “1st Suite in E flat for Military Band” as well as the masterpiece “English Folk

Song Suite” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. These compositions are just a few examples of the excellent repertoire that was being performed by this incredible band program at this time.

By examining the repertoire being performed, it is evident that Monroe was a very successful program at this time. To have a high school band program that is performing music by

Bernstein, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, and more, tells you this was a program of the highest caliber or at the very least, that the concert band was performing quality repertoire.

One of the reasons the band program at Monroe High School was so successful was the high level of musicianship. During the 60s, Monroe was chosen by LAUSD to experiment with

“tracking” for students. Students had to pick an emphasis to study. All students had to pick a major of which they would have the opportunity to take additional classes in that subject matter.

“The music department offered two years of music theory and one year of music history in addition to the different ensembles.”33 The extra classes provided a unique opportunity for the students at Monroe to grow and develop as musicians.

In addition to working hard both musically and academically, the students recall the fun atmosphere that surrounded the band program. “The students worked hard and put on a good show but had fun too.”34 This attitude and positive energy would last with the band for two decades, and as directors changed so did the energy and the culture of the band program. The students recall that their favorite past time during the 60s was to eat at Straw Hat Pizza after the football games that the band performed for, and then toilet paper houses. There was one person

33 Sheryl Philips, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 1, 2020. 34 Ibid.

15 in particular who the marching band students targeted frequently. Jeff Spector, alumni, recalls,

“After every home game we would find our way to the choir director’s house and toilet paper the heck out of it. We would also go back and help clean it up the next day.” The students in the 60s were pranksters but kind-hearted for the most part. During the late 60’s the sousaphone players in the band had covers over the bells of their sousaphones that spelled out Monroe. M-O-N-R-O-

E. When the students were frustrated with the director, they would turn the letters around to say

M-O-R-O-N or even N-O M-O-R-E.

Other hijinks that would occur for the band at this time was, “The Cow.” The ceramic cow from a local dairy was placed on top of the administration building during senior cut day and larger pep rallies. The cow prank happened several years in a row from 1964 – 1966. In addition, the drainage and water runoff were a large problem on Haskell Avenue, which borders

Monroe. The students in the 60s would wait for the rains to come and then would sneak out at lunch and raft their way down Haskell Avenue from Plummer to Nordhoff.

The 1960s were a time of great prosperity for the band program. The school was brand new, the community was thriving, and the band had a tremendous amount of success. The band had 150 students including the flag team, which is a large group by today’s standards in LAUSD.

The 1960s were a politically charged time and, although those politics affected the school population, the students themselves were not aware of or affected by it.

Despite the civil rights movement happening, the Monroe community was largely unaffected by it. Segregation was happening, but the students in the band were able to go about their studies unaffected by what was happening around them. According to students from the

60s, they recall living in their own world that was unbothered by the outside world. It is important to remember that during this time, the San Fernando Valley, and Sepulveda were nice

16 rural areas on the other side of the hill from Los Angeles. The community was isolated and the band program was able to flourish due to the lack of interference from outside political or social forces.

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Chapter 3: The 1970s

As the 1970s began, Monroe’s demographic was still wealthy middle class predominantly white students. According to Sharon Devol, alumni from the 70s, “There were only two black students, and there were a lot of wealthier Jewish students in the school.”35 Devol goes on to say the school was very, “father knows best.” Devol also recalls,

Jewish students were looked at as weird and were more of the outcasts of the school but for the most part students stayed in line and the most outrageous thing students did was smoke cigarettes in the bathroom. The students were very much in their own bubble. The boys could not have hair that touched their collars, and were not permitted to have any facial hair at all. The girls were not permitted to wear pants and were required to wear long skirts at all times.36

Monroe was considered a very proper institution for learning at this time, especially at the beginning of the decade.

As the 1970s progressed African American students were bussed from inner city areas to come to Monroe, and students from the valley were sent to the inner city schools. “In 1978,

LAUSD unveiled its desegregation plan, two years after the California Supreme Court had ordered the district to desegregate. The plan called for the mandatory reassignment of 54,000 students.”37 Considering Brown vs the Board of Education was decided by the U.S. Supreme

Court in 1954 it is incredible to think that it took LAUSD 24 years to unveil their plan to desegregate the schools. The reassignment of students affecting Monroe was the first time the students would be affected by outside political or social forces.

The reassignment of students was also referred to as forced bussing. “Forced bussing led to White Flight, where white families left the San Fernando Valley to Orange County and

35 Sharon Devol, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 1, 2020. 36 Ibid. 37 Jack Schneider, “Escape from Los Angeles: White Flight from Los Angeles and Its Schools,” Journal of Urban History, 34, no. 6 (2008): 1007, https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.csun.edu/stable/pdf/10.1525/phr.2007.76.1.1.pdf ?refreqid=excelsior%3A3d9f7205b5dc37b4ca298a9be9e35c9d.

18

Ventura County to avoid sending their students to inner city schools, and to avoid having their students interact with inner city students that were being bussed in.”38 In addition to White

Flight, the valley’s first attempt at secession began in the 70s. “An organization of businessmen calling itself the Committee Investigating Valley Independent City/County (CIVICC) led the best-organized of those efforts, which failed in 1977 when the Los Angeles delegation in the state legislature closed the legal loopholes CIVICC sought to exploit and forced any future secessions to be approved by the Los Angeles City Council.”39 Residents of Sepulveda wanted to secede from the city of Los Angeles and the biggest reasons were a lack of local control and concerns of over taxation.

In addition to forced bussing and the secession movement, students were impacted by the Vietnam War for the first time. “Students feared the draft and experienced loss as their friends and families were being drafted into the war effort.”40 Another issue connected to the draft would be changing the voting age. Students felt it was unfair that they were old enough to be drafted, but not old enough to vote, and the 1970s are the first time the students at Monroe would be involved politically or socially with the world around them.41

The Vietnam War started in the 1950s but it did not start to affect the students of Monroe until the beginning of 1970. The students at Monroe protested the war, the draft, and the voting age.42 The students of the 1970s were more politically engaged than the students of the 1960s.

Students started to feel the impact of the war once people they knew and cared about were being drafted. “It was tough to see friends or people we loved being drafted. I remember my brother

38 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020. 39 Andrew Michan Connor, “These Communities Have the Most to Gain from Valley Cityhood: Color-Blind Rhetoric of Urban Secession in Los Angeles, 1996–2002,” 40, no. 1 (20014): 1008, https://journals-sagepub- com.libproxy.csun.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0096144213508081. 40 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid.

19 wasn’t cleared medically to be drafted, and we were all so relieved.”43 “Many families at Monroe were doing all they could to avoid the draft. Young men would see their doctors to try to create an excuse or anything they could to be designated 4F, and deemed unfit to serve.”44 There was a sincere panic happening amongst the students at Monroe and residents of Sepulveda during the draft years. Many individuals did whatever they could to not be drafted.

Sheryl Philips, a graduate of Monroe in 1966, taught middle school choir in LAUSD in the 1970s. Philips’ mother was an elementary school teacher in San Fernando, and her husband was a band director in Santa Monica. One of the most telling things discovered in the interview with Philips was that she was ashamed and almost embarrassed to share. Philips stated that,

“Half a dozen Monroe students from the graduating class of 1966, died in the Vietnam War.”

She went on to say that, “The war was a scary thing for the residents of the valley as the draft started, and that more affluent families were doing what they could to avoid the draft.”45 Philips recalls that there were many families doing everything in their power to make sure their sons were “unfit” to serve. Phillips’ mother was an elementary school teacher in San Fernando, and knew the residents of San Fernando very well having taught in the community for a number of years. As mentioned previously, the Hispanic students of the San Fernando Valley were sent to

San Fernando High School for instruction. Philips’ shared that her mother remembered going to a number of funerals for former students’ families who had lost loved ones during the Vietnam

War, and that in her recollection, “Almost every male student from the class of 1966 at San

Fernando High School died in the Vietnam War.”46 Considering only six students from Monroe died during Vietnam and the high number of San Fernando High School students Philips stated

43 Ibid. 44 Sheryl Philips, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 1, 2020. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid.

20 that the ignorance she had is something that is still embarrassing for her today. Given Philips’ account, it is clear that the Vietnam War affected the residents of the San Fernando Valley in very different ways.

The Vietnam War contributed to another major issue on Monroe’s campus. The students at the time were concerned that the voting age was 21. Students felt that it was unfair that they had to worry about the draft and could not vote yet. Jerome Stocks, class of 1974 stated, “We had a hard time with the fact that we weren’t old enough to vote, but old enough to go to war.”

The issue of the voting age was very highly contested not just at Monroe but also across the country. “Teenagers and 20-somethings participated in, and, in many cases, led sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches demanding civil rights for blacks, greater opportunities for women, and an end to the unpopular war in Vietnam.”47 Although the Monroe students lived in their own

“bubble”, they started to feel, like many of the youth at the time, the impact of the war and wanted to change the voting age. “That (the voting age) wouldn't change until 1971, when the

26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave Americans the right to vote in any election at age

18. While there had been talk about lowering the voting age for decades, the idea didn't catch on until the turmoil of the 1960s made it seem not only logical but inevitable.”48 The students at

Monroe felt that they helped to contribute to the voting age changing by their constant protesting and promoting awareness of the issue. It is a great point of pride with the alumni from this time.

The residents of Sepulveda first attempted leaving the city of Los Angeles and becoming an independent municipality in the early 1970s. Secession was attempted more than once by the residents of the San Fernando Valley, because Valley residents believed they were being

47 Merrill Perlman, “18-Year-Olds Get the Vote: Forty Years Ago, at the Height of the Vietnam War, the 26th Amendment Lowered the Voting Age from 21 to 18,” New York Times Upfront, September 5, 2011, https://go-gale- com.libproxy.csun.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE|A269337145&v=2.1&u=csunorthridge&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w. 48 Ibid.

21 overtaxed by the City of Los Angeles. “Valley business owners, too, were dissatisfied with city hall and the downtown business establishment. The former, they believed, overtaxed the Valley to fund services to the rest of the city, while the latter monopolized influence over city hall.”49 At the time, the valley was still a wealthy middle to upper middle class area, and residents did not feel it was their responsibility to fund the rest of Los Angeles. “The Valley was a metropolitan paradox: an archetypal postwar suburb located within the limits of the nation’s second largest city.”50 The San Fernando Valley was a nice get away from the hustle and bustle of the city but was still close enough to Los Angeles for residents to enjoy the city. Additionally, according to valley resident and Monroe alumni Judy Freedman, “Residents wanted to secede because, they wanted more local control, and felt the city was too big to manage them and was going to bleed them dry.”51 The residents of the Valley at the time were middle class conservatives who believed very strongly in more local control, and less taxes. This first secession movement created a great disruption for the residents of Sepulveda and its residents.

Another historically important event in the San Fernando Valley’s history is the Sylmar earthquake. “When the dust cleared on the 1971 Sylmar-San Fernando earthquake 45 years ago

Tuesday, 64 people lay dead and more than 2,500 lay injured beneath more than $550 million in rubble.”52 Although no part of Monroe was damaged structurally in the earthquake, many in the valley were affected. In addition, Monroe actually closed for a week due to flooding.53 “The lower dam at the Van Norman reservoir near the L.A. Aqueduct threatened to burst, spilling 3.6 billion gallons of water into nearby Granada and Mission hills. More than 80,000 people below

49 Connor, “These Communities Have the Most to Gain from Valley Cityhood,” 49. 50 Ibid. 50. 51 Judy Freedman, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 4, 2020. 52 Dana Bartholomew, “Sylmar-San Fernando Earthquake: 45 Years Ago Tuesday, 64 Killed,” Daily News, August 28, 2017, https://www.dailynews.com/2016/02/08/sylmar-san-fernando-earthquake-45-years-ago-tuesday-64-killed/. 53 Jeff Spector, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 12, 2020.

22 the dam were evacuated.”54 The photo below, thanks to Dana Bartholomew’s article regarding the earthquake, shows some of the devastation the earthquake caused.

figure 3.1 Sylmar Earthquake

The 1970s ended with the forced bussing movement, which was the district's implementation of desegregation. Forced bussing was a highly contested issue. “Students were being bussed and did not want to go to a foreign community of which they were unfamiliar and students did not like the idea of having to take the bus and get home late.”55 Additionally, forced bussing meant that for many students, they could not participate in any after school activities like

54 Bartholomew, “Sylmar-San Fernando Earthquake”. 55 Ibid.

23 athletics or marching band. There was not a late bus to take students home after practices, which were held afterschool. In addition, because many students had a 2 -3 hour bus ride home a late bus would not be reasonable for students to stay late. In addition to student disagreement with the forced bussing, LAUSD personnel were not happy about it.

“Many also feared that the cost of bringing “youngsters from East and Central Los Angeles, code for Latino and black students, into schools would have to come out of the budget by eliminating other items . . . as there [was] no new money available for the purpose. One of the justifications for the program was as an effort to relieve overcrowding, but if students from overcrowded schools were moved to better-off schools, some assumed it might diminish educational quality in receiving schools by increasing the student-teacher ratio.”56

Students, parents, district personnel were all displeased with forced bussing. The students were not happy about having to leave their neighborhoods and some of the white residents were worried about losing resources, and the effect the forced bussing would have on the overall quality of instruction. The forced bussing was a huge factor in Sepulveda’s shift in demographic.

White families that were not happy about the forced bussing had two options. One option was to leave Los Angeles. “Many Valley residents and Los Angeles fled to Orange County.”57

Wealthier white families fled the forced desegregation that was occurring. “Orange County’s population more than doubled from 703,925 in 1960 to 1,420,386 in 1970, when it was 88 percent white, and again increased dramatically to 1,932,709 in 1980. Los Angeles’s other neighboring counties—Ventura, Kern, Riverside, and San Bernardino—grew collectively in population nearly 100 percent (from 1,300,904 to 2,550,445) between 1960 and 1980.”58 In addition to white families leaving the valley, the Hispanic population was growing at an extremely fast rate. A second option for families fleeing the desegregation was sending their

56 Schneider, “Escape from Los Angeles”, 1004. 57 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020. 58 Ibid., 1005.

24 students to private schools. “Some whites, rather than moving, sent their children to private schools, in attempts to avoid desegregation. Although some city officials admitted that busing could accelerate the middle-class flight, they also made the point that White Flight was “already a fact of life” by that time.”59 The wealthiest families were leaving LAUSD at this time for private schools or leaving the city all together. The White Flight coupled with a rising minority population really helped to shape the San Fernando Valley as well as Orange County as we know them today.

As more students of color were bussed into Monroe, some racial tensions began but for the most part, there would be a very limited amount of incidents. There were limited incidents where a black student in the band was harassed, but the number of occurrences were limited because it was well known that the entire band would respond by confronting the parties involved. Students recall, “There was an attitude in the band at the time that you do not mess with anyone from our group, regardless of where they are from.”60 The attitude of the band students shows the cohesiveness the band students had and experienced.

Not only was the political climate and demographic changing at Monroe during the 70s, but so was the band program. The two legends from the 1960s Deichman and Logan had moved on to other things and the band program had become stagnant. The 1970s started a downturn for the band program that would be followed by the next three decades. There are plenty of highlights to celebrate for the band program during the 1970s, but the heights experienced during the 60s were gone.

Mr. Charles Davidson was the director for all of the 1970s. The band program continued to stay the same size. Of course, there were difficulties, but the band program stayed strong. One

59 Ibid.,1006. 60 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020.

25 of the biggest differences for the 70s compared to the 60s was the new emphasis on marching band. The concert band was almost non-existent during this time.61 The marching band had become very successful and thus became the primary focus of the band program. Below is the yearbook photograph for the 1972 marching band.

figure 3.2 Monroe Marching Band 1972

The ensembles being offered during the 1960s and 1970s were the same: concert band, jazz band also called dance band or theatre support, and of course marching band. The 1970s did away with specialized diplomas and majors for students and with that went the extra classes for music theory and music history. The 1970s was a decade that was mostly a response to the

61 Gonzales, James Monroe High School Alumni Survey

26 success the band program had experienced in the 1960s. Monroe of the 1960s was known as a dynamite marching band and the groups from the 1970s would attempt to continue that.

Furthermore, the 1970s would start a trend of supporting the marching band over the other groups and concert band would become secondary.

The marching band during this time continued to be known as a very entertaining group.

Members from the marching band in the early 1970s recall, “Performances at the Friday football games were a spectacle that many fans came out to see. The size of the marching band ranged from approximately 150, including drill team and flag team, in the early 1970s to approximately

40 in the mid to late 1970s.”62 However, by the tail end of the 1970s, the band would grow back to the size it was when the decade started.

As was the case in the 1960s, the marching band of the 1970s played modern repertoire.

The fan and student favorite show was “The Chicago Show”. The marching band performed what we would call class rock today, and the favorite of many was the song “25 or 6 to 4” by the band Chicago. Many of the members from this time remember playing “25 or 6 to 4” as their favorite song, and as the highlight of their time in the marching band.

Another exciting thing to emerge from the marching band during this time was the

Boogie Woogie Band. The Boogie Woogie Band started when students decided they wanted to play their own arrangements and form their own groups to perform. Jerome Stocks, a student in the early 1970s was in one of the first Boogie Woogie Bands. Stocks stated, “Monroe students felt it was a shame that they put on such a great show for the varsity football team, but were leaving out the junior varsity team.” Stocks and his Boogie Woogie Band would roll up their jeans, put on a torn t-shirt, and in flip flops march out at the halftime of the junior varsity games

62 Sharon Devol, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020.

27 to play for the crowd. According to Stocks, they were supposed to look “rough around the edges”, and they did, and they put on quite a show for the audience. Jerome Stocks, alumni provided the photograph below of the “Boogie Woogie Band”.

figure 3.3 Monroe High School Boogie Woogie Band

The marching band in the 1960s and 1970s were featured at many local events and were used for magazine advertisements. Rogers Drums, featured in CBS Instruments Magazine featured the Monroe drumline in an advertisement, which speaks to the type of marching band

28 program Monroe had at the time. Additionally, from the photograph you can see how large the drumline was, a telling depiction of the overall size of the marching band. The photograph below features the Monroe Marching Band in the Rogers’ Instruments add, and was provided by

Jerome Stocks.

figure 3.4

29

In addition to being featured in CBS Instruments Magazine, Monroe was selected as a feature group for the opening of Magic Mountain in 1971. Monroe performing for the opening of

Magic Mountain speaks to the quality of the group at the time as well as the reputation that the

Monroe Marching Band enjoyed. The Magic Mountain performance was not the only ceremonial opening that Monroe played that year. The Monroe Marching Band also played for the opening of John F. Kennedy High School in 1971.63 Kennedy high school would go on to be one of

Monroe’s biggest rivals, even today. “Kennedy and Monroe compete in athletics, marching band, and more importantly for student enrollment. Students in the North Hills and Mission Hills area often have a choice between Monroe and Kennedy as to which high school to attend.”64

In addition to local events and openings, Monroe also participated in many local parades.

Sue Weinsoff Hendricks, class of ‘76 remembers one parade in particular.

We marched in a parade down Victory Blvd, I think for Veteran's Day. It was raining. Our uniform consisted of a 1-1 1/2 foot tall, vintage type Shako completely covered in white fur. During the parade, they soaked up a lot of water and became VERY heavy and hard to keep upright as we marched. After the parade, everyone put their uniforms back in their plastic zippered garment bags BEFORE letting them dry out. The coats were red white and blue double breasted where if wrapped right over left showed a big V for Vikings and when wrapped left over right had a big M for Monroe. Whichever side was wrapped to the inside in the garment bag grew mold that was visible on the white portions even after dry cleaning.65

The uniforms Hendricks mentioned above are the same uniforms Janice Stocks designed in the early 60s and that the marching band wore for the Rose Parade in 1966. Additionally, these are the same uniforms from the CBS Instruments Magazine feature. Replacing that many uniforms would cost tens of thousands of dollars, and was a huge setback for the marching band. Later in

63 Gonzales, James Monroe High School Alumni Survey 64 Mat Diamond, interview by author, Los Angeles, January 14, 2020. 65 Sue Weisenoff Hendricks, interview by author, Los Angeles, January 16, 2020.

30 the late 1970s, the white shakos would be replaced with purple ones that in fact had horns coming out of the sides. Students from the late 1970s and early 80s remember being “Moo’d” by people in the stands wherever they went wearing those blue shakos with the horns. The photo below on the left is provided by Mat Diamond, current Monroe Principal, the shako is proudly displayed in the main office at Monroe. The photo below on the right is a screenshot from the

YouTube video, which shows Monroe performing at the L.A. Forum.

figure 3.5 figure 3.6

As mentioned above, in 1972 former Monroe band director John Deichman started the

LAUSD All City Marching Band. This would be huge for the students at Monroe. The students were provided the opportunity to travel with the All City Marching Band, and this was important for the students at the time, because the current marching band at Monroe stayed local for the most part and did not travel outside of the valley. “All City” provided the students the opportunity to see different parts of Los Angeles. Students also had the opportunity to do parades at Disneyland, and at the Coliseum. The tradition that Deichman started in 1972 is still going strong today. Anthony White, Director of the current All City Marching Band states,

31

Students have the opportunity to play in the Rose Parade, perform at Disneyland, and perform for the Los Angeles Rams games at the Coliseum. Students also receive a free ticket to Disneyland, a valuable incentive for students. The All City Marching Band marches the same style as it did in the 1970s, a high step technique, which makes it very difficult to have woodwinds in the group. Since this marching style is not suited for woodwind players, there are no woodwinds in the group. The group consists of brass, percussion, tall flags, and shields.66

In addition to the All City Marching Band starting, in 1974 the Los Angeles Unified School

District Marching Band and Drill Team Championships began.

“Championships” as it is referred to now, is a marching band competition that takes place the first Saturday of the year in December. Championships is only open to LAUSD marching bands and provides a unique opportunity for the students of LAUSD to perform for and against one another. This event has had a lasting impact on the schools in LAUSD. Not only does the event provide an opportunity for LAUSD students to see their peers perform and to socialize with them, it provides an opportunity for directors to get together also.67

LAUSD is a very large, the district reaches from the north end of the San Fernando Valley and as far south as San Pedro. Having the opportunity for directors and students to perform for one another and be together from all over Southern California is a fantastic experience for all involved.

The competitions during the 1970s took place in The Forum. “The Form opened its doors in 1967 and was home to both the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings.”68 It is incredibly impressive that the students of the 70s had the opportunity to perform in the same space as the

Lakers and the King's two professional sports franchises in Los Angeles. This provided an incredible opportunity for the Monroe students to perform in the same place as their sports

66 Anthony White, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 6, 2020. 67 Ibid. 68 “The Forum,” Los Angeles Conservancy, accessed March 4, 2020, https://www.laconservancy.org /locations/forum.

32 heroes. Today the LAUSD Championships take place at East Los Angeles College. The competition still provides a sense of community and togetherness.

In 1979, the Monroe Marching Band had a standout performance at LAUSD

Championships at The Forum. Their performance featured majorettes, color guard members on both tall flags and swing flags, a drill team of approximately 54 members as well as almost 100 instrumentalists. There was a drumline of almost twenty members, trumpet duets, and a trumpet solo. The students wore their new red and white uniforms with their purple shakos proudly. The drum major displayed a red shako. The uniforms, from the late 1970s and early 80s, also had a cape, which proudly displayed, ‘”Monroe.”69

In addition to the marching band playing a prominent role in the music department during the 1970s so did the musicals. There was a class during the 1970s dedicated to the musicals, called Theatre Support. The music department hosted the musicals and played in the pit orchestra. There are many important alumni that come from Monroe, but one was a stand out on the stage and then eventually found his way to television. Alan Muraoka has played “Alan” on

Sesame Street for the last twenty-four years.70 In addition to his time on television, Alan has also starred in many different Broadway productions.71 Having a talented actor like Alan Muraoka at

Monroe explains why the music department was able to do so many wonderful productions.

According to alumni, “the musicals were popular during the 70s and many from the community would come out to see them.”72 During his time at Monroe, 1976 – 1980, Muraoka starred in The

69 “Monroe HS Marching Band- @ 1981 LAUSD Band & Drill Championships,” YouTube Video, 10:42, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV2rjb7v7yc. 70 “Alan Muraoka,” IMDb.com, accessed on February 12, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1390833/. 71 Alan Muraoka, “Actor Resume - Alan Muraoka,” accessed on February 12, 2020 http://www.alanmuraoka.net/ actor-resume.html 72 Gonzales, “James Monroe High School Alumni Survey”.

33

Music Man, Once upon a Mattress, and South Pacific. In addition, he was in Cabaret, and directed and choreographed West Side Story as well in the student productions.73

The dance band, or jazz band was popular, and had roughly twenty-five members. The dance band of the 1970s did not perform very much and was a minor part of the department; it would not be until the 1980s that would change.

As it was in the 1960s, the band culture of the 1970s was fun and featured many pranks.

One of the favorite pranks of the students was to take Mr. Davidson’s car and put it into the band room. “He drove a smaller European car that six students could lift.”74 According to alumni from the 1970s, their favorite pastime was messing with Mr. Davidson’s car. The students took all the tires off the car and put it up on trashcans. However, the most adventurous prank was “The students sat the car up on its rear bumper up against the fence so when the marching band went out to practice Mr. Davidson and the marching band saw his car sitting on its end.”75 The students always put Mr. Davidson’s car back together, and everyone laughed about it. The one exception is when Mr. Davidson left Monroe, the interim director did not think that the hijinks and pranks were funny, and some of the band was unable to participate in graduation.

Similarly, to the bands from the 1960s the bands of the 1970s would go out together after the football games. One of the “hot spots” was Shakey’s. Shakey’s became a band hang out spot for much of the decade. Students recall going to Shakey’s to eat and then going to egg or toilet paper the neighborhood.76 Shakey’s was not the only place the band would go out to eat; they also would take the freshman “out for breakfast”. Upperclassmen would show up at the underclassmen’s house and “kidnap” them in the morning, and make them go to Ihop or Denny’s

73 Alan Muraoka, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 8, 2020. 74 Jerome Stocks, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 3, 2020. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid.

34 with them in their pajamas. This, like the other pranks, were done in good faith, parents were notified and all had a good time.

In addition to feeling strongly about the war and the voting age, the students at Monroe had another movement that they were passionate about that was also a prank. The band students started a petition to get the school’s name changed to Marilyn Monroe. The band students thought that it was funny and considered it one of their best pranks, until the movement gained some real steam. Ultimately, the name was never changed, but what started out as a joke almost became a reality for the students at Monroe.

The 1970s were a decade that provided change for the Monroe band program both socially and politically. The students at the time were impacted by desegregation starting through forced bussing. Additionally, students were feeling the impact of the Vietnam War and the draft.

These outside factors paired with two legendary band directors leaving the band program led to the downward spiral for the band program.

35

Chapter 4: The 1980s

When the 1980s started White Flight was still very much happening in the valley. “By

1980, the ranks of Los Angeles County private schools had swelled to roughly 200,000.”77 The more affluent families were leaving LAUSD due to forced bussing and many flocked to private schools for salvation.

The white population inched up from 2,018,508 in 1960 to 2,185,147 in 1970, only to decline significantly to 1,838,112 in 1980. Even the relatively large 9 percent decline in the overall white population between 1960 and 1980, however, was far less dramatic than the overall decline of school age whites—30 percent—or even more dramatically, whites enrolled in LAUSD for that period (68 percent).78

Many of the students that remained were the lower socio-economically disadvantaged group of students. “During the 1980s the racial landscape of the Valley became more diverse and clear patterns of segregation and animosity emerged. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the Latina/o population in the San Fernando Valley doubled to 385,000.”79 Many Valley residents saw the rise in Latino population as a threat to their current way of life and immigrants were met with hostility.

The students at Monroe however, were not worried about the rise in immigration, stating

“As students we were unbothered by the increase in Latino students at the school”.80

Additionally, the school saw a rise in the African American population due to the continued forced bussing.81 The students were not concerned about the changing demographic, they were just kids, and felt that if you were in the band you were “one of us” regardless of race, ethnicity, etc.

77 Schneider, “Escape from Los Angeles”, 1006. 78 Ibid., 1006. 79 Jean-Paul R. Deguzman, “Resisting Camelot: Race and Resistance to the San Fernando Valley Secession Movement,” California History 93 no.3: 30, https://doi.org/10.1525/ch.2016.93.3.28. 80 Gonzales, “James Monroe High School Alumni Survey” 81 Ibid.

36

In the early 1980s when the forced bussing ended, it did not have the results most would expect. “This morning, all of the 23,000 children affected by the program were entitled to return to schools in their own neighborhoods. But school administrators estimated that only 7,000, of whom about 4,000 were either black or of Hispanic origin, had accepted the offer.”82

Surprisingly, many of the students elected to stay with their current school. One of the reasons is that students at these schools did not treat the bussed students poorly.

There have been no problems, none whatsoever, Jack Furumura, principal of the Coliseum Street School, which is in a largely black community, said of the transition this morning. His school had exchanged pupils with another in Pacific Palisades, an affluent, predominantly white section of the city. We have the same number of students coming back as returning to their home school in Pacific Palisades, 35, he said. It's incredible, but there really were no problems.83

It is remarkable that the student response to forced bussing was this positive. Students were not happy about being bussed, but for the most part, student life continued as normal, and they dealt with it the best that they could.

The Sepulveda area of the San Fernando Valley in the early1980s was still a white conservative neighborhood when the decade began. Residents of the time when asked stated,

“The 80s were a time of prosperity, there wasn’t much to complain about, I mean Reagan was president.”84 The community at the time was rebounding from the Vietnam War. The early 1980s were a high point in the valley’s history. The forced bussing and segregation were over, and residents were benefiting from Reagan’s economic success,

We do not know whether historians will call it the Great Expansion of the 1980s or Reagan's Great Expansion, but we do know from official economic statistics that the seven-year period from 1982 to 1989 was the greatest, consistent burst of economic

82 Robert Lindsey. “LOS ANGELES BUSING ENDS AFTER 3 YEARS.” The New York Times, April 21, 1981. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/21/us/los-angeles-busing-ends-after-3-years.html. 83 Ibid. 84 Judy Freedman, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 4, 2020.

37

activity ever seen in the U.S. In fact, it was the greatest economic expansion the world has ever seen - in any country, at any time.85

Overall, the feeling during the 1980s was very uplifting and hopeful.

In addition to feeling the benefits of the Reagan economy, the students and residents of

Sepulveda had something else to look forward to during the 80s. The eyes of the world would be finding themselves looking to Los Angeles, The Olympics were coming, and with them an excitement that permeated through Monroe. At the time however, Los Angeles was the only city that wanted to host the Olympics, and the residents of Los Angeles did not want to pay for it.86

Eventually, the Olympics coming to Los Angeles would prove to be a fruitful endeavor for Los

Angeles. “For nearly three decades the $225-million surplus generated by the L.A. Games has supported elite athletes and those who play purely for fun. The U.S. Olympic Endowment, which is independent of the U.S. Olympic Committee, uses its 40% share of the surplus to support

Americans’ Olympic endeavors. It’s the largest funding source for our athletes to go to the

Games in Brazil.”87 The Olympics coming to Los Angeles brought with them an excitement and sense of pride to Los Angeles that was felt on the Monroe campus and throughout Sepulveda.

Even though the 1980s were a prosperous and exciting time, this prosperity would not last. The end of the 1980s saw a rise in the minority population and a rise in immigration, which led to an increase in gang activity. The gang population exploded all over the country but especially in

Los Angeles. “By 1980, there were approximately 15,000 Crips and Bloods gang members in and around the Los Angeles area. The gangs-or sets-ranged in size from a few gang members to several hundred and had little, if any, organized leadership. The typical age of a gang member

85 Martin Anderson, “The Reagan Boom - Greatest Ever,” The New York Times, January 17, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/17/opinion/the-reagan-boom-greatest-ever.html. 86 Ken Hively, “Column: L.A. Summer Games Were a Risk That Is Still Paying Off,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-la-olympics-elliott-20140729-column.html. 87 Ibid.

38 varied from 14- to 24-years-old.”88 With the expansion of gangs in Los Angeles, both Los

Angeles and the valley saw a rise in the poor treatment of immigrants and especially immigrants from Central American countries. “Some opposition from rival gangs like Mara Salvatrucha or

MS-13 started as a response to the way Central American immigrants were being treated in Los

Angeles by the other gangs in Los Angeles.”89 The valley and Sepulveda began to be known for their gang activity, and the valley became unsafe for the first time, and saw the most violence it had seen since its post war prosperity. “By the 1980s, these gangs began targeting their communities and surrounding neighborhoods for drive-by shootings, assaults, murders, and other felonious crimes. Violence became a way of life.”90 The Sepulveda area of the late 1980s was a stark contrast to the valley of the 1960s and 1970s. The school population began to reflect that, and the rise in gang population found its way to the Monroe campus for the first time. The photograph below is provided thanks to the 1982 Monroe yearbook.

88 Marcus, Hoover, “Where All the Madness Began: A Look at Gang History,” accessed March 12, 2020, https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/gangcolor/madness.html. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid.

39

figure 4.1

The music program started to decline in the 1980s. It is easy to see why, if you consider the outside political and communal forces. The school’s resources were now being allocated to handle the rise in gang population and Monroe started to have an image problem. They were beginning to be known for the violent gangs that were starting in Los Angeles. The band did not receive the same resources as it once did, the enrollment for the band program was on a steady decline, but one part of the band program was on the rise.

The jazz program started to flourish in the mid-1980s, in large part due to the efforts of one of the band directors. In the mid-1980s, there were two music directors at Monroe, one director focused on the concert band and marching band, the other focused on jazz band. The jazz band director, Tony Kissane was a studio jazz musician early in his career and was able to

40 bring that experience into the classroom. Alumni Roger Johnson remembers that on numerous occasions, Kissane was able to take the entire jazz band to the studio in order to record themselves have the experience of being in a real recording studio. Jonson recalls, “Kissane was opening the doorway to garage bands, and to the idea that students could make a living playing their instruments.”91

Kissane had an obvious impact on Monroe and he would go on to be a prominent figure in music education in the Calabasas area. John Anthony Kissane after leaving Monroe went on to start the Calabasas Chamber Orchestra.

He started just from scratch in a small town with few resources building up the Calabasas Chamber Orchestra; it really brought a sense of fine arts to the community. It kept expanding, and he had a vision that someday he would be able to offer it on a very large scale to the community instead of having just a couple small concerts a year. . . . I was just so glad he was able to see that his work at the grass roots level kind of bore fruit after all these years. Now the music we offer . . . is the legacy of the community. That was what made him happy. 92

Kissane had a large impact on the students at Monroe and would go on to inspire countless others at Calabasas High School and in the city of Calabasas at large.

One Monroe student Kissane inspired was Jimmy Keegan. Jimmy Keegan is a professional drummer and a Yamaha artist who attended Monroe from 1981-1984.

Jimmy started playing at 10 years old. A few months after receiving his first drum set, he landed a TV show alongside the late River Phoenix. A few months later, he was doing theater in LA as a cast member and musician. By 14, he started his first band Polo that would end up in regular rotation at Disneyland as well as winning Star Search and performing on numerous telethons. By age 18 he had started getting calls for sessions and tours.93

91 Roger Johnson, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 5, 2020. 92 Joann Groff, “Kissane Left Arts Legacy in Calabasas,” The Acorn, June 27, 2017. https://www.theacorn.com/articles/kissane-left-arts-legacy-in-calabasas/. 93 Jimmy Keegan, “Bio,” Jimmy Keegan, accessed March 12, 2020, https://www.jimmykeegan.com/.

41

Jimmy Keegan credits the influence and mentorship of Kissane as one of the reasons he is drumming today. The opportunity to record in a real studio and to have that experience was exactly what Keegan needed. Later, Keegan would go on to play with different artists ranging from, “Santana, John Waite and Kenny Loggins to Tevin Campbell to Tony Orlando. 2003

Jimmy began touring with Spock’s Beard alongside fellow Aquarian artist Nick D’Virgilio.”94

Keegan still tours today with Spock's Beard and is an active performer and musician in the professional music community.

Before Keegan was playing with Santana and Kenny Loggins, he was playing drum cadences at Monroe. Keegan was a drummer in the marching band. Keegan remembers the gang population at Monroe being a presence but not really hassling anybody than other gang members. Keegan shared a story about making music with different students involved with gangs. Keegan stated,

There was one football game where different gang affiliated students were having a rap battle in the stands. I went over on our 3rd quarter break and told them I would play the drumbeats for them so they could rap over the top of it. The other students obliged, and Kegan had just one rule. I told the students that if there was of this Crips and Blood nonsense that I was out. The rap battle went down without any issues.95

For that short time, Keegan was able to bridge the gap between the two rival gangs.

As the 80s moved forward, the marching band and concert band ensembles floundered and almost collapsed. In 1983, Michael O’Rear was able to bring the band back, but given that he only stayed a short time, the band program did not continue to grow. Thanks to the yearbooks from this decade as well as accounts from students who attended Monroe at this time, we can see the band by the end of the 1980s would get as small as 20 students; however, the drill team was still quite large, matching the size of the instrumentalists. The repertoire that was performed by

94 Ibid. 95 Jimmy Keegan interview by author, Los Angeles, February 8, 2020.

42 the marching band was “Russian Sailors Dance”, “Take 5”, “Espana”, Malaguena”, “Star Wars

Theme”, “What Kind of Fool am I”, “Mr. Viking!”, “Sir Duke”.96 The band performed mostly modern compositions with a mix of more traditional tunes. When interviewing students from the late 1980s they declined to talk about their experience saying, “There isn’t anything to say, it was pretty bad here during those times.”97

Despite dwindling numbers and a lack of success, the marching band managed to stay active. The marching band participated in the Granada Hills Highlander Field Competition, the

Panorama Christmas Parade, and the Wilson High School Marching Band Competition, which was the preliminary round for marching band championships for LAUSD. In addition, the marching band also performed at the L.A. Marathon playing, “A Night in Tunisia”, “Louie,

Louie”, “Flamingo Lips” and “Stepping out with My Baby”.”98

The end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s are referred to as, “the dark ages” by long time Monroe staff members like Paul Yamamoto. The band by this point was almost phased out and the jazz band had disappeared completely. There is little support for the students at this time, and a continuous rotation of directors. The marching band dominates the band program, and concert band is non-existent. The marching band has lost all momentum it once had. The bands from the late 1980s are very different from the excellence that the bands of the 1960s and

1970s in both size and quality.

Despite the desperation happening in the music department, the school hijinks did not stop at Monroe. One of the most memorable pranks in school history happened during the 1980s.

In 1986 seniors, including those in the marching band, stole the Bob’s Big Statue and cemented

96 Gonzales, “James Monroe High School Alumni Survey”. 97 Ibid. 98 James Monroe High School, Valhalla, (Sepulveda, California: 1989), 118, James Monroe High School Library.

43 it to the senior lawn in the quad. The students were not caught, and to this day, that prank is known by alumni as the best prank in Monroe history. The photograph below is provided by

Discover Los Angeles (https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/eat-drink/bobs-big-boy-the-story-of- an-la-icon).

figure 4.2

44

Chapter 5: The 1990s

The band program had reached a low point in 1990, and almost disappeared completely.

The 1990s were not only a low point for the band program but also brought the departure of the neighborhood of Sepulveda. After the rise of the gang population in the 1980s and a tarnished reputation, the residents of Sepulveda changed their name yet again to North Hills. “A local effort to break away from the name tainted by gang, drug and crime activity along the Sepulveda corridor in the 1980s prompted the roughly 5-square-mile community to adopt the moniker

North Hills in 1991.”99 Residents of Sepulveda hoped that changing their name to North Hills would bring change as well as distance themselves from the Sepulveda name, which was so highly associated with gangs at this time.

The first group that broke away from Sepulveda and became North Hills was seeking to leave the other half of Sepulveda behind. The 405 freeway divides the city, residents that live west of the freeway have houses that are nicer and safer, and there is far less gang activity and homelessness. Residents that live east of the freeway in North Hills have less quality housing and there is higher gang activity as well as considerably more homelessness. The area of North Hills between the freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard has some of the highest crime rates in the valley.

Furthermore, “The hotels that line Sepulveda Boulevard are home to the worst sex trafficking rings in Los Angeles.”100 This area is where the Blythe, Langdon, and Columbus Street gangs are active and have been for 30 years.

The gang activity as well as homelessness is the community is what the North Hills group was trying to leave, but the rest of Sepulveda that was left behind would follow them anyway.

“Six months after residents of part of Sepulveda changed their region’s name to North Hills to

99 Hoffman, “Treasure amid Valley Bustle”. 100 Mat Diamond, interview by author, Los Angeles, January 14, 2020.

45 escape the stigma of crime and seediness they said had become attached to the name the community they fled rejoined them Thursday.”101 The name of the community changed but the area, residents, and reputation however, all stayed the same.

Due to the uptick in gang activity in 1997, the city attorney filed an injunction against gang activity. This was an effort to reduce some of the gang activity in the North Hills area and provide a safer community for all. “Imposed in late May at the request of City Attorney James

Hahn: a gang injunction that imposes strict prohibitions on the behavior and association of 31 named members of the Langdon Street gang, which has dominated community life for years.”102

Some of the restrictions for gang members were that they were not allowed to congregate in large numbers. This action in particular was especially helpful for the Monroe community. “The gangs used to wait outside the school for our students. We would call school police and chase them off but it didn’t really do any good until the injunction.”103 The Langdon gang had a very large presence in the Monroe Community and this injunction helped to ensure the safety of the students, parents, and staff at Monroe. The biggest contribution from the injunction was that it helped to limit the proximity of gang members to Monroe High School, which provided a safer environment for the students. “When you have gang members hanging out and a student walks by, they might see a gold chain and they take it. It’s those crimes of opportunity that an injunction prevents against.”104 The school and city realized that the number of incidents of

101 Jim Herron Zamora, “What Remains of Sepulveda Will Also Become North Hills: Name Change: Residents Didn't Want to Be Deserted by Their Former Neighbors,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1991, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-11-22-me-92-story.html. 102 Lou Rutigliano, “Ganging Up Against Injunctions,” LA Weekly, May 24, 2019, https://www.laweekly.com/ganging-up-against-injunctions/. 103 Paul Yamamoto, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 3, 2020. 104 Ibid.

46 violence and theft against students was high after school and that is one of the reasons this injunction was so important.

In addition to the crime and violence, drugs have been a large problem in the Monroe community since the rise in gang population.

Police call ‘drive-thru drug boulevard,’ also known as Orion Avenue, where shoppers are only a 405 exit away. Officials describe this stretch of the San Fernando Valley as drug dealing heaven. Several major highways lie within five minutes, surface streets are long and flat so lookouts can spot approaching cops from blocks away, and the crowded apartment buildings have enough nooks and crannies to hide several Langdon Street gangs.105

This area of the valley Orion and Nordhoff is only half of a mile from Monroe high school.

Furthermore, many of the Monroe students live in this area and are forced to walk through this

“drive-thru drug boulevard” every day. The injunction did help to curb some of this drug activity however; it continues to be a problem today.

Not everyone was thrilled about the injunction and many residents felt that it was a violation of civil rights, and a form of harassment. “It was before 3 o’clock, and they just told him to get off the street: You need to go home. If we see you out here again we’re going to pick you up and cite you.”106 The residents of North Hills felt that this was an abuse of power. The community felt their civil rights had been violated. Connie Rodriguez a former Head Start teacher and community leader did not feel that the injunction was contributing in a positive way to the community; she states, “You have 31 named gang members here. The majority of them are in jail right now, and of the remainder, half of those aren’t even gang members,” Rodriguez goes on to say, “So based on maybe seven or eight alleged gang members, the city attorney, James

105 Ibid. 106 Ibid.

47

Hahn, is proposing to hold the community under siege.”107 Rodriguez and other leaders like her attempted a grassroots effort to curb the gangs in North Hills, only time will tell if the injunction was successful but one thing is for sure, it definitely had a positive impact on the school climate and school community.

In addition to changing the name of their community, at the end of the 90s, residents had a desire to secede from Los Angeles for the second time. The second secession movement began in the mid-90s. The issue was finally voted on in the early 2000s but was not successful.108 There has not been another secession movement since the late 90s and early 2000s and it does not appear that there will be a push for secession again soon.

Another major issue of the 90s was the Northridge earthquake, which occurred in 1994.

The earthquake was a major disruption for residents of the valley. “72 deaths were attributable to the magnitude 6.7 temblor and that 11,846 people were treated for quake-related injuries in hospitals in Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties.”109 In addition to the deaths, there was,

“A tremendous amount of structural damage leaving over 80,000 structures damaged or destroyed.”110 The Northridge earthquake shutdown Monroe high school for a week even though they had minimal damage. The only damage that occurred was one of the buildings, S hall, was flooded.”111 Although there was minimal damage to the school itself, the earthquake became quite the disruption for residents.

The 90s began with great turbulence for residents of the now North Hills. The valley residents were frustrated with the rise in gang population, and this attitude echoed through the

107 Ibid. 108 Connor, “These Communities Have the Most to Gain”, 50. 109“Northridge Earthquake: Readers Remember the Disaster before Dawn,” Los Angeles Times, January 7, 2014, https://www.latimes.com/local/la-readers-remember-northridge-quake-dto-htmlstory.html. 110 Ibid. 111 Paul Yamamoto, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 3, 2020.

48 school. “Monroe was not a safe school to attend in the 1990s.”112 The rise in the gang population in the neighborhood and on campus coupled with the rise in student population made for a chaotic environment. According to Paul Yamamoto, a Monroe teacher during this time,

“Monroe’s student population averaged approximately 4,200 students, almost doubling what the population is now.”113 The rise in gang population definitely contributed to the school climate and a decrease in the overall quality of the band. As the focus shifted in the later part of the 80s and the early part of the 90s from prosperity towards concern for the growing gang population resources were allocated away from the band.

The community of North hills was in turmoil during the 1990s. The gang population was out of control and so were the violence, drugs, and sex trafficking. All residents did not warmly receive the measures imposed by the city to curb this activity and this created unrest. The community changed its name and tried to separate itself from the “bad” side of town. North Hills residents also tried, unsuccessfully for the second time, to secede from the city of Los Angeles.

All of this happening in the small community of North Hills, and right in the center of it is

Monroe high school. The Monroe high school music program, which was once the pride of the valley, who marched in the Rose Parade, performed on National television in the 80s at the forum. The Monroe music program, which had been a pillar of outstanding performance, entertainment, and showmanship in the valley, dues to the outside mitigating forces was now on the verge of disappearing completely. Below is the photo of the band from 1990. You can see the total program represented below in the 1990 band yearbook photo.

112 Ibid. 113 Ibid.

49

figure 5.1

This photograph tells us a lot about the band program at this time. The picture above represents the entire band program at Monroe during 1990. There was not a jazz band, and the band did not travel. The primary focus of this group was to play for the football games in the fall and the basketball games in the spring. “The band did not have regular directors during the

1990s; in fact, the band program had a series of pool subs.”114 Pool subs are teachers that have been displaced and are placed into the substitute pool for each school. Because the Monroe band did not have a director, the school placed different substitutes with them during the early 90s.

114 Ibid.

50

The only reason there was a band program and any music program at Monroe at all in

1990 was one dedicated student, Frances Miranda. Thanks to the yearbook from 1990, we can see that Frances, a senior in was the music director for the marching band as well as the theatre director.115 The students were essentially self-run from 1990 – 1992. Miranda did her best to direct and rehearse the band as well as the pit orchestra for the musical. Frances is pictured below.

figure 5.2

In spite of the band being small during this time the drill, team was still quite large. The drill team was well over 25 students for much of the 90s and is the only bright spot of the band program during this decade.

115 James Monroe High School, Valhalla, (Sepulveda, California: 1990), 122, James Monroe High School Library.

51

There would be a minor resurgence in the program during this decade. In 1993, Mr.

Gough joined the music department and would be director for two years. Mr. Gough was able to bring back the jazz band, and provide some much-needed stability to the band program. Mr.

Gough stayed two years at Monroe and in that time was able to grow the band program from less than fifteen students to more than thirty. Additionally, the marching band began to return to its roots of performing for parades and competitions. In 1994, the band competed in and won first place in both the Chatsworth and Pacoima Parades.116

The success that Mr. Gough had achieved in growing the program left when Mr. Gough took another position elsewhere. The picture below represents what was left of the band program in 1995. For the rest of the decade an “advisor” not a music director would direct the band. The

figure 5.3

116 James Monroe High School, (Sepulveda, California: 1995), 128, James Monroe High School Library.

52

Monroe Band would not have a music teacher in place until 1999.

The band program of the 1990s was a reflection of what was happening outside of

Monroe in the neighborhood of North Hills. The band had little or no resources and the school administration at the time did not think it was necessary for the school to have a full time band director. Instead, the program had different substitute teachers, and faculty advisors. A band program needs stability and direction from a director with proper training, and that was not happening at Monroe during this time. The gang population and the growing number of students coming into Monroe overwhelmed the administration. The community of North Hills was a very dangerous place to be during the 90s and the administration at the time did not prioritize the band program whatsoever.

There are no hijinks or memorable stories to share from this decade, the focus and the climate of the school and the band program was very different from the previous three decades.

The 1990s were a very tough time for the school and for the band program as well as the community of North Hills.

53

Chapter 6: The 2000s

figure 6.1, Monroe Marching Band, 2001

2000 - 2010 was an interesting time for the residents of the newly formed North Hills.

The residents had a new name, but the same zip code. Residents desperately wanted a new zip code to help distance themselves further from the past issues of the 90s. Additionally, residents were still reeling from the rise in the gang population as well as the injunction that followed. The

2000s would bring some stability for the community and for the band program at least until the later part of the 2000s.

One of the biggest issues of the 2000s was the recession. The recession lasted approximately two years and took quite a toll on Monroe and the school district. “The Great

Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, which makes it the longest

54 recession since World War II.”117 The recession greatly affected the school district and their budget, which led to funding cuts, which have lasting effects to this day. The Federal Reserve states,

The unemployment rate, which was 5 percent in December 2007, rose to 9.5 percent in June 2009, and peaked at 10 percent in October 2009. Home prices fell approximately 30 percent, on average, from their mid-2006 peak to mid-2009, while the S&P 500 index fell 57 percent from its October 2007 peak to its trough in March 2009. The net worth of US households and nonprofit organizations fell from a peak of approximately $69 trillion in 2007 to a trough of $55 trillion in 2009.118

LAUSD was already dealing with budget concerns before the recession and had no choice but to tighten their budget along with everyone else.

The recession hit everyone in 2007 but teachers in LAUSD were directly impacted when the district started laying off teachers. By the 2009 school year thousands of teachers and school personnel would be “pink slipped”. “The Los Angeles Unified Board of Education on Tuesday unanimously approved sending nearly 5,200 layoff notices to teachers, administrators, counselors and nurses, as the district looks to close a $640 million budget deficit for the next school year.”119 Thousands of teachers were laid off across the district and many arts programs suffered greatly.

Monroe’s reputation at this time is still recovering from the gang issues of the 90s, and because of this, many of the veteran teachers find themselves moving on to different schools, leaving many first and second year teachers to work at Monroe. When the layoffs happened, it was determined based on seniority. “Layoffs by seniority -- last hired, first fired -- have been part of the California Education Code for at least three decades, and A.J. Duffy, president of United

117Robert Rich, “The Great Recession.” Federal Reserve History, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/ essays/great_recession_of_200709. 118 Ibid. 119 “LAUSD Approves Pink Slip Notices,” Daily News. August 28, 2017, https://www.dailynews.com/2010/ 03/02/lausd-approves-pink-slip-notices/.

55

Teachers Los Angeles, said it was unlikely the union would support doing away with it.”120

LAUSD layoffs hit many schools like Monroe the hardest because many teachers at Monroe were in their first few years with the district. It is often difficult for schools like Monroe to retain teachers long term given the challenging climate and student population. Many of the Monroe teachers experienced this quirkiness of being their own substitutes; Monroe was able to hire a certain number of teachers back, but at a reduced substitute rate and at the cost of their seniority.

Teachers received less pay and did not receive service time for during this period. Franklin

Gomez who started in 2008 with Monroe as music director, started as a long-term substitute for the music position.121 In addition, Monroe high school was not the only school affected by the recession and the layoffs, but definitely felt the impact in a large way.

The late 2000s were a tough time for everyone especially for music educators. Wilber

Ibarra, the current Music Director at John F. Kennedy High School started his teaching position at Kennedy High School as a substitute, because at the time, the district could not hire new teachers. “The district had a list of displaced teachers and was looking for positions to fill. Hiring a new teacher was very difficult at this time and in fact hiring new teachers was frowned upon.”122 There were many schools like Kennedy or Monroe, which had positions unfilled but were not considered desirable locations for music educators. Wilber Ibarra states, “The weird thing was that there were teachers on the must hire list that didn’t want schools like Monroe or

Kennedy, so I took the opportunity, and so did Franklin at Monroe.”123 This is a very telling example of the climate at the time. Arts education was not a consideration or a priority at this

120 Jason Song, “Looming Layoffs Revive Debate on Teacher Seniority,” Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2009, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-10-me-layoffs10-story.html. 121 Wilber Ibarra, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 7, 2020. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid.

56 time. Furthermore, the district and the school sites were still reeling from the recession. Despite the chaos happening during the 2000s, the decade would end up producing three music directors that contributed to Monroe’s band program getting back on track.

The marching band primarily dominated the band program for the 2000s. Marching band operated year round, and was the primary ensemble of the music program. There were years where jazz band or funk band were offered but marching band was always been the primary focus. There were three different music directors during this decade and they all helped to contribute to the positive direction that Monroe was headed. The program for these years are all the same, they offered marching band year round, jazz band/funk band, as well as beginning band. The marching band was always between 15-25 members in the band and approximately double that in the drill team.

The first and director of the 2000s was Julia Anderson. Anderson was the director from

1999 - 2001, and in this short time was able to achieve success that her predecessors from the previous decades were not. Anderson was able to return the marching band to its former excellence that was previously seen in the 60s and 70s. In 1999, Anderson led the marching band to a 2nd place finish at “Rampage” the marching band field tournament at Hart High School.124

The second place finish was quite the feat considering the amount of neglect and lack of funding and support the band program had received previously. To follow up their success in 1999

Anderson was able to lead the marching to a first place finish in 2000 at Moorpark High

School’s “Battle of the Bands” field tournament. Anderson was able to breathe some life back into the band program. The program was marching band focused and although the band was small, they did have some very competitive years. Anderson was the first music director the

124 “Resources,” World of Pageantry, Band, Color Guard, Drum Corps and Drill Team News, https://www.worldofpageantry.com/.

57

Monroe band had had since Mr. Gough in 1993 and represented a shift away from band as a club and a shift towards the excellence that was once common in the band program previously.

Following Julia Anderson Andrew Sollars took over as director for the Monroe Band

Program. Sollars was able to follow up on Anderson’s success and continue to be competitive with the marching band from 2001 - 2004 but that ended in 2005.The high score for the 2005 season for the Monroe marching band was a 30.2 which is half the score they had been averaging in the previous few seasons.125 By 2005, the marching band was having no success and stopped competing altogether. Unfortunately, Sollars was unable to grow the band program any further, the band stayed at a small number, approximately 20-25 members during this time. A highlight from Sollars’ time as director is the drumline winning the American Drumline Association

Championship in 2001. The ADLA, as it is called for short, is the most common drumline competition circuit in Southern California. The championship banner still hangs proudly in the music room at Monroe today.

After Sollars departed Monroe in 2006, the program went without a director until 2008.

As mentioned above 2008 was a difficult time for the district and for Monroe due to the layoffs and the recession. Franklin Gomez took over in 2008 and started by teaching beginning band and orchestra. Later, Gomez would go on to add “The Big Red Jazz Band” and eventually bring the marching band back to Monroe, but to do this he would need some help.

When Franklin Gomez started at Monroe there was not a marching band and had not been one in three years. The students however, had interest in the marching band and pushed

Gomez and the administration to bring the marching band back. Breana Bermudez was a student at Monroe and was the driving force behind the student led petition to bring the marching band

125 Ibid.

58 back to Monroe.126 Despite being met with resistance from administration, Bermudez was able to assist in Gomez in reinstating marching band to Monroe and in 2009 Monroe’s marching band competed in the LAUSD field band tournament and although had a low score of 45.8, this performance would signify the return to their former success.127 From 2009 until now, Monroe would start the slow climb up the competitive ladder and would eventually return to a state of stability, excellence, and musicianship that was only previously experienced in the 60s and 70s.

The marching band at this time featured two different style of uniforms, a corps style uniform designed by Gomez and a traditional uniform that the students referred to as the

“Nutcrackers” since they resembled the uniforms worn by nutcrackers. Students of this time recall the fact that they had to wear two different uniforms was embarrassing and frustrating for them.128 The marching band using two different styles of uniforms speaks to the lack of resources available to the band at this time.

figure 6.2 Franklin Gomez design figure 6.3 Traditional, “Nutcracker” uniforms

126 Brenda Bermudez, interview by author, Los Angeles, March 8, 2020. 127 World of Pageantry. 128 Gonzales, “James Monroe High School Alumni Survey”.

59

Gomez was able to reinstate the jazz band, calling it “The Big Red Jazz Band”. Red is the primary school color for Monroe so this new name for the jazz band had the students excited.

“Students would wear all black with red accents, either ties, or ribbons.”129 The jazz band would perform for the local middle schools and performed mostly popular jazz pieces that their audience would know. The purpose of “The Big Red Jazz Band” was to provide energy and excitement for the band program, and it worked. The jazz band combined with the resurgence of the marching band started to provide some much-needed momentum for the band program.

During this decade, there were not many concerts at Monroe, and when there were concerts they were mostly the marching band music being performed sitting down in the concert hall. The orchestra would occasionally join the band at concerts, but again this time was focused on the marching band and the concerts reflected that. The concerts would be an opportunity for drumline to show off cadences, color guard to perform their routine, and for the audience to hear the marching band music in doors. The jazz band would perform minimally at concerts also, and were an audience favorite when they performed.130

129 Ibid. 130 Ibid.

60

Chapter 7: 2010 - Present

figure 7.1 Monroe Marching Band 2018

2010 - 2020 has been a time of growth for the band program and for Monroe itself, but the same cannot be said for the community at large. A combination of dropping enrollment and a rise of “newcomers” has drastically changed the demographic from the previous decade. The community has seen an increase in undocumented people coming to North Hills, mostly from

Central America. Which has put a financial strain on the city and its resources.131 James Monroe

High School in its school demographic report states the following,

In addition to high density, the median household income is nearly $10,000 lower than the US average, and the percentage of families living below the federal poverty line

131 James Monroe High School: School Plan (North Hills, CA 2019).

61

averages (23.2%) residents are overwhelmingly Latino (71.4%), economically impoverished, lacking post-secondary education (fewer than one-third of residents 25 and over have any college experience), and likely to speak a language other than English at home (79.1%) Over half of Panorama City’s population is foreign-born. Monroe High School also has a transiency rate of 43% annually. 132

Essentially, these numbers tell the tale of a city and school demographic that is socioeconomically disadvantaged, undereducated, and does not have adequate access to resources for their students. Perhaps the most telling statistic is the high transiency rate of 43%.

This statistic indicates that 43% of Monroe students are classified as homeless, which is one of the highest transiency rates in LAUSD.

Despite these financial challenges, there has been a turnaround in student behavior. One of the contributing factors besides the injunction mentioned previously, is the advent of

Restorative Justice. The Restorative Justice Program has helped to reduce student suspension rate at Monroe and lead to a more positive school environment. “Restorative Justice Pathway to

Successful Schools promotes core values that require students to think about themselves and how they interact with one another, develop healthy relationships, become accountable for their own actions, and learn how to manage conflict.”133 Due to Monroe’s unique demographic, the school is often chosen for pilot programs like the Restorative Justice Program that the district implements on a smaller scale before distributing district wide. Other examples of pilot programs at Monroe during this time are laptop distribution. Because of the limited financial resources of parents at Monroe, the school was gifted laptops for every student. The district provides every

Monroe student their own laptop during their time at Monroe high school. The district provides state of the art and extremely high quality laptops. Despite the financial hardships of the community, Monroe has been prospering in the last ten years in large part due to the support of

132 Ibid. 133 Ibid.

62 the district as well as the onsite administration willingness to work with the district and their willingness to implement Pilot Programs.

In the last five years, there have been two key factors in the growth of the music department. The first key factor comes from the Arts Education Branch, which has contributed millions to arts programs throughout the district. Based on the Arts Equity Index, the Arts

Branch distributes money to each school based on the data they have collected. “In the last three years alone, Monroe high school has received over $30,000 in arts funding from the Arts

Branch.”134 The band program at Monroe is able to receive a large portion of this money annually to help pay for supplies, travel, instruments, competition fees, and much more. The second key factor in growth for the band program has been the support of Beyond the Bell.

Because Monroe is a very high need area, the school receives funding and support staff to provide after school programs. The Beyond the Bell after school staff have been a part of the band program for the last 10 years. “Currently there are three staff members that work afterschool with the band program year round, and Beyond the Bell provide the salaries for the staff.”135 The additional staffing provided by Beyond the Bell and the additional budget from the

Arts Branch have helped the band program to grow and have helped to increase the quality of instruction tremendously.

At the end of the 2000s and beginning of the 2010s, Franklin Gomez had revived the band program. The marching band was brought back, the jazz band was becoming exciting again and the program was building momentum. During this time, the band met before and after school. “Marching band would meet during 0 period, which was from 6:40am - 7:40am every

134 Mat Diamond, interview by author, Los Angeles, January 14, 2020. 135 Ibid.

63 day.”136 It is easy to see why numbers for the program were still small during this time. It is difficult for high school students to get to school every day anyway, let alone asking them to arrive before 7am.137 Furthermore, many of the Monroe students do not have parents that are waking them up and taking them to school. Many of the students are responsible for getting themselves and often times their siblings to school. 2011 would be the last year for Gomez as music director at Monroe high school, and the program would not have a permanent director for the 2012 school year.

The 2012-2013 school year unfortunately was similar to years in the recent past where the program was neglected. Similarly, to the 1990s, the 2012 school year saw a revolving door of directors and many different substitutes were brought in. According to alumni Travis Villegas,

“The students at the time did not receive any serious instruction, the instruments were not maintained well and the number of students was lower than 20 total students.”138 The general attitude of the school was that the band program was more of a club and considered superfluous at the time. Fortunately, during this time, the band parents at Monroe were not happy about the status of the program and petitioned the administration and the principal for change.

2013 was the year first year Ryan Gonzales became the music director. Gonzales was a

CSUN graduate in music education and music performance and thanks to the training he received during his undergraduate degree was able to reestablish the band program. One of the first changes Gonzales made was to move the band class during the regular school day, and although this was highly contentious for the administration, it would produce great results down the road. In addition to moving the band class during the day, Gonzales decided that the focus of

136 Travis Villegas, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 13, 2020. 137 Author, Ryan Gonzales is the current band director at James Monroe High School and has worked at James Monroe High School since 2008. 138 Travis Villegas, interview by author, Los Angeles, February 13, 2020.

64 the band program should be the concert band and not the marching band. The concert band at

Monroe, which only met minimally in the spring semester in the past, would now meet year round. Marching band was still a priority for the program but was second to the concert band.139

The shift in focus for the band program as well as moving the time of the class to the regular school day, helped to produce a boom in enrollment for the band and the music department as a whole. The 2019-2020 school year saw the concert band grow to its biggest size since the 1970s. Currently there are three concert bands, three orchestras, jazz band, marching band, winter drumline, and winter color guard at Monroe and the program offers more ensembles than it has in the past decades.

Currently there are close to 300 students in the total program annually and every one of the students in the program has their own school instrument that they can take home and practice. Due to the impoverished nature of the community, none of the Monroe music students owns their own instruments and since 2013, Gonzales has made it his mission to ensure every student has their own instrument to use during their time at Monroe. Thanks in large part to administrative support and two Mr. Holland’s Opus grants, the 2019-2020 was the first year that every band student was able to have their own instrument and not have to share with another student.

In addition to the growing band program, the overall musicianship of the band students at

Monroe has increased. There has been an increase in musicianship due to two major factors. The first factor is the partnership with California State University Northridge. The music education department at CSUN and the band at Monroe have been able to create a partnership that fosters growth for both entities. The CSUN students have been providing free private lessons to the

139 Author, Ryan Gonzales is the current band director at James Monroe High School.

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Monroe students since the 2018-2019 school year. The Monroe students receive free private instruction that they would have not been able to afford otherwise. Additionally, the CSUN music education students receive experience and guidance as well as the opportunity to grow as educators in a safe and positive environment. The Monroe students that participate in private lessons perform an annual recital in May where they display what they have been practicing with their private instructor. Currently, there are private lessons available for every band and string instrument. In addition, thanks to the graciousness of the CSUN music education students

Monroe is proud to host private lessons for middle school and elementary students in the community. Monroe is the main organizer of the activity for the different parties and CSUN students provide the instruction.

The second major factor in increased musicianship for the band students has been the year round concert band. For the first 55 years, Monroe high school had a model of marching band in the fall and concert band in the spring. The main issue with this model is that when students are receiving instruction in the fall they are receiving music instruction only half of the time, with the other half of instruction focusing on marching technique. The downside to this model is that it leaves less time for marching band. The current marching band at Monroe only meets before and after school, but due to the increased overall musicianship there has not been any decline in the quality of the marching band, in fact, the 2019-2020 was the highest scoring year the marching band has had since 2000.140 The band program is thriving at Monroe currently, and has reached a place of long-term sustainability, thanks in large part to the partnership with the CSUN music education program, administration support, and funding from Beyond the Bell and the Arts Branch.

140 World of Pageantry.

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Chapter 8: Conclusion

The previous five decades that band program has mirrored the landscape of the surrounding North Hills community. From 1960 – 2010 when the community thrived the band program thrived, and when the community suffered so did the band program. The most recent decade and especially the last five years 2015 – 2020 have seen the band program thrive despite the socio-economic challenges that the community faces, making the last five years and the most recent decade the most unique.

The James Monroe High School Band program has a long tradition and has done many amazing things for the community of North Hills. The band program has also produced many key figures in the music education landscape. The first two decades provided tremendous success for the band program at Monroe, and the band much like the community of Sepulveda, flourished despite the political and social landscape that was occurring across the country. As the community of Sepulveda and eventually North Hills began to suffer in the 1980s and 90, the band program began to suffer also reflecting that lack of economic prosperity.

The most recent decade has seen the band program prosper despite the unique challenges of the community. The band program has prospered in large part to the support of the LAUSD

Arts Branch, Beyond the Bell, school site administrators, and dedicated students. Interestingly enough, the last 7 years have been the only years in school history where the band program has not mirrored the culture and climate of the surrounding community. The community of North

Hills is safer than it was in the 1990s but still not as safe as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. There is still a tremendous amount of poverty and homelessness in the community. In spite of the challenging outside factors, the band program is flourishing at Monroe.

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When the average person thinks of James Monroe High School they do not necessarily think of a thriving arts or music program, but that is precisely what is happening now and what has been the case for many years. The band program has been able to thrive in the face of adversity. The last seven years have seen the program return to its former excellence that had not been seen since the 1960s. The band program at Monroe is now a beacon of hope and inspiration for the community members as well as students and teachers on campus. The band program at

Monroe has a long and storied tradition, which will continue for years to come.

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Appendix A

Chronological Order of Music Directors

The following list was created through a culmination of alumni interviews, yearbooks, and staff accounts. The list presented provides a general over view of the different directors from Monroe’s history.

1959 John Deichman 1989 Unknown/Vacant 1960 John Deichman 1990 Keith Williams 1961 John Deichman 1991 Mr. Fahrenbach 1962 John Deichman 1992 Mr. Fahrenbach 1963 John Deichman 1993 Mr. Gough 1964 John Deichman 1994 Mr. Gough 1965 Ron Logan 1995 Mr. Clancy – Advisor 1966 Ron Logan 1996 Mr. Clancy – Advisor 1967 Mr. Altheuser 1997 Mr. Clancy – Advisor 1968 Mr. Monsic 1998 Mr. Clancy – Advisor 1969 Mr. Monsic 1999 Julia Anderson 1970 Mr. Miller 2000 Julia Anderson 1971 Charles Davidson 2001 Julia Anderson 1972 Charles Davidson 2002 Andrew Sollars 1973 Charles Davidson 2003 Andrew Sollars 1974 Charles Davidson 2004 Andrew Sollars 1975 Charles Davidson 2005 Andre Sollars 1976 Charles Davidson 2006 Andre Sollars 1977 Charles Davidson 2007 Unknown/Vacant 1978 Charles Davidson 2008 Unknown/Vacant 1979 Charles Davidson 2009 Franklin Gomez 1980 Mr. Miller 2010 Franklin Gomez 1981 Mr. Miller 2011 Franklin Gomez 1982 Mr. Miller 2012 Vacant 1983 Michael O’Rear 2013 Ryan Gonzales 1984 Michael O’Rear 2014 Ryan Gonzales 1985 Miller/Kissane 2015 Ryan Gonzales 1986 Tony Kissane 2016 Ryan Gonzales 1987 Unknown/Vacant 2017 Ryan Gonzales 1988 Unknown/Vacant 2018 Ryan Gonzales 2019 Ryan Gonzales

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