Save Dan and Sasha!

Music and art are essential to learning. We chose Muscota for our daughter largely because the school know this and because of its arts curriculum. Don’t take away these two amazing teachers.

Dan and Sasha are tremendously talented artists, exceptional educators, and they are essential to the fabric of our Muscota community. Please, help them to be a part of our children's educational and learnng path.

Dan and Sasha are both fantastic teachers who enrich students' lives enormously.

Throughout the pandemic, Dan and Sasha were an essential part of maintaining a connection to the school community. My daughter would be so excited if it was Thursday and Dan had posted another town meeting because they made her smile and even laugh during a really rough time. She would sing a long and just light up. Also, prior to the pandemic, I came to see performances at the school, and his enthusiasm probably can't be matched by any teacher I've ever met. He is amazing! Sasha was the first to really be able to teach live over Zoom. She was able to teach large classes, engage them with questions, show specific art techniques and allow them to share their work and process. Of all the classes, hers felt the most normal. There was instruction, a project, and feedback. It was great!

Part-time arts teachers at small schools like ours are not extras, but an important part of our community.  They provide artistic outlet, creativity, and connections to traditions that ground our children during this uncertain time.  Dan and Sasha are integral to that for our school! While our family values the artistic skill and musical knowledge our daughter gains in their classes, (not to mention the pride and joy she feels through the artistic process), it is what I observed as a teaching peer while working as a dance artist in Muscota this past year that convinces me they are in fact essential workers at Muscota.  Their professional knowledge, passion for teaching, mentorship, concern about equity, personal relationships with students and families, commitment to this school community, and responsive practices both at school and during remote learning cannot be replaced by just any teacher.  Dan and Sasha are the people best positioned to develop artistically literate students in THIS school community for THIS year.  Please grant the exception to rehire Dan and Sasha for this school year.  They have never been more needed than now! 

Excellent music and art teachers are a treasure to keep!

Art and music are not extras! They are the stuff of life, an essential part of our humanity. Muscota’s strong reputation in the arts was a major reason we chose to send our daughter there. We understand that the DOE faces budgetary pressures, but it upsets us that arts education would be considered expendable.

Sasha and Dan are excellent teachers who are familiar with the school and the students. This is such a difficult year for students, parents, and school staff, and by not allowing an exception here, the DOE is only making things more difficult. Let's get some good news and allow this exception - that would make a lot of people happy!

Access to the arts is essential at this time. Music and Art are what keeps my child interested in and invested in her education. Without these subjects, her love of learning will be diminished. Please allow us to keep Dan and Sasha in our community.

We LOVE Dan and Sasha and what they bring to the students of Muscota!

Dan and Sasha are each indispensable and irreplaceable. I am a professional cellist and have been blown away by Dan as a musician, as a performer, as an instructor, as an organizer, and, especially, as a communicator of the joy of music to every child at Muscota. I honestly cannot imagine a better and more inspiring music teacher - please don’t take Dan and Sasha away from the Muscota community. Their departure would be devastating to the children.

Dan and Sasha are essential to Muscota’s identity and community. Their arts programming and leadership is what makes this diverse school community in northern manhattan so special. Ina year when we have lost so much, please don’t take aware these teachers that our children adore!

Per the DOE's August 6th, 2020, "Update for Families on Instruction,” the DOE cannot make good on its promise of integrating "social-emotional activities and trauma-informed care into academic subjects to the greatest extent possible throughout the day" by cutting Muscota New School's art and music teachers, Sascha and Dan. It will be impossible to "prioritize mental health supports throughout the school year" by cutting off children's access to two of the most vitally expressive forms for children's mental health and overall well being. The daily live instruction that the DOE's very own model prioritizes for fully remote and blended learning students will suffer tremendously by cutting Sasha and Dan, who created some of the most hopeful and inspiring content this past spring, as our children were attempting to learn under great duress. Whether or not the powers in charge of lifting the F2 freeze care about the arts, it is worth remembering that Apple’s founder Steve Jobs famously attributed what made his creations so unique and compelling were the art forms that he studied, which helped him humanize technology. As Sir Ken Robinson has argued in Creative Schools, the arts are essential to teaching children essential skills for tomorrow’s workforce. Tomorrow’s leaders will be individuals who can think creatively and approach problems using skill sets that cannot be learned by rote but that are acquired via the ability to integrate and synthesize content into new forms. Art and music teach these very skills. They are as important as math and literacy and provide children with additional means for understanding computation and narrative. For hundreds of years, the arts have opened doors for individuals that would otherwise have been closed to them. Cutting Sascha’s and Dan’s positions will move our children and our community backward in terms of equity at a time when the national conversation demands that we move forward. I repeat, we must move forward, not back

Our children need the arts and music now more than every in this troubling time. Any immediate cost savings through the hiring freeze will likely result in increased need and expenses elsewhere in Muscota's DOE budget in the years to come. This is because the music and art programs are an integral part of the curriculum and reinforce skills taught in other areas. Cutting these teachers will likely lead to poorer outcomes for all students. Not to mention that we will loose these exceptional teachers and the institutional memory that they hold.

My children enjoy music with Dan and art with Sasha so much! They are such an important piece in their growing creative development! We need them.

We need Dan and Sasha, as they are the core of our school culture. They are essential.

The arts are essential to learning in the best of times, and critical in these worst of times. Sasha and Dan are extraordinary educators that we need at Muscota.

Nothing brings my child joy like singing with her peers and creating original artwork!

Art and music is always essential but now more than ever. Families have endured such loss — they need hope and joy and ARTS for healing.

The arts has proven to keep children focused and calm and especially during these times is the time to keep music and art in every school or else the children are doomed and it will have a seriously negative impact on their lives. Take a look at music therapy and remember that great artists can bring the same amount of much needed support to all school children. These teachers are those who will support the children in your school in the most positive ways.