School music program opened world for Chesterfield County girl

Music proves valuable teaching tool Chesterfield celebrating program that helped student move ahead

At 2 years old, Tory Shelton had the cognitive ability of a 10-month-old. She did not speak or understand when spoken to.

"We tried a lot of ways to get through to her, and sign language helped some," said her mother, Lynn Shelton. "It wasn't until she started going to the art and music classes at Alberta Smith Elementary . . . that she really started opening up."

The team for Tory's individualized education plan for special education noticed the quick progress she was showing and wondered what was being done differently.

"Once she was introduced to the performing arts, every IEP meeting they went to she gained three to six months of cognitive knowledge," Shelton said of her daughter.

Tory Shelton, a senior at Monacan High School, proves true the arguments and studies highlighting the benefits of music education in the schools, her mother said.

March is National Music in Our Schools Month, and Chesterfield schools are observing it with daily activities ranging from announcements to music festivals. The county music program in schools, which enrolls 34,415 of about 58,000 students, has won for Chesterfield recognition in the Best Communities for Music Education in America program of the National Association of Music Merchants the last two years.

But in these tough economic times, music programs are feeling the pinch. The School Board has approved a budget that includes reduced funding for new instruments and repairs. The school system has a $32 million budget shortfall after an infusion of stimulus money. That would mean some students wouldn't be able to play music, teachers say.

Now more than ever, there should be more financial support for music and the arts because it is the only way many students would be exposed to them, Lynn Shelton said.

"When they started talking about cutting arts in the schools, I was like, 'What if there hadn't been those arts classes at Alberta Smith, the music.'"

Shelton said that once her daughter found art and music she never missed those classes, even when she had a 104-degree temperature. She took private dance lessons. She began to improve academically. By second grade, she was released from special education, Shelton said.

"When she finished fifth grade, she was getting music and art awards."

Tory gave up dancing in seventh grade and concentrated on playing flute, which she picked up in fifth grade.

She never imagined that her love for music would allow her to overcome transition issues and blossom socially. Her shy nature made transitioning through school levels difficult. She said she cried frequently when she thought of her first days at Monacan. She chose that school because it's smaller, but it meant losing her friends, she said.

"I knew no one," Tory Shelton said.

But from the start of late-summer marching band camp, band mates made her feel at home, Tory said.

"I realized after the first day that I was excited of going to high school," she said. "I felt so happy."

In addition to music, Tory is participating in a spring musical for the second year. She's graduating in the top 10 percent of her class, and she's going to the honors program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the fall to pursue a degree in music education.

"I want to be a band teacher," she said.

Tory said that if it hadn't been for the music and arts, she would probably be the quiet student in the corner or still be in special education.

"Without the arts and music, I would not have been able to express myself the way I do now," she said. "I would not have been able to become confident in myself and the goal-reaching person that I am today."