Since 1983, Music in Schools Today (MuST) has served schools grades K-12 in the San Francisco Bay Area. We are also online to serve students, schools and families everywhere. We touch the lives of roughly 10,000 young people annually with our music and arts programs while serving as a databank of music-related resources and an advocate for music and arts in schools and community centers.

• Watch the video of our Achieving Through Music program in the San Francisco Unified School District.
• Watch the video of our Learning Laboratory School Network program.

On-Site Programs

• Achieving Through Music
  We offer this unique percussion program as therapeutic intervention to some of our most at-risk youth, documenting how active music making improves student performance. Watch the video of this program in the San Francisco Unified School District, and view an online photo album of this program.
  
  
• Understanding Cultures
  We provide classes that improve literacy and social studies through understanding world music, currently featuring Chinese, African, Afro-Caribbean, Filipino, Flamenco and Native American music and movement. View an online photo album of this program.
  
  
• Music Mentors
  We offer music mentor workshops to youth in the San Francisco Bay area, where music professionals mentor young musicians and those interested in working in the music business, as well as online mentors available to answer questions via e-mail from youth anywhere in the world. View an online photo album of this program.
  
  
• Music Plus
  Through a collaboration with the Music-in-Education National Consortium and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Music in Schools Today is developing a pilot opera program at El Dorado Elementary in San Francisco and Thornhill Elementary in Oakland beginning in Fall 2008. Children will learn to create and produce their own work. The opera-making sequence and professional development program will improve teacher instruction and student performance in both the arts and other core academic areas by developing and implementing standards-based, music-integrated curricula.
  
  
• Exploring Music
  Work with MuST to design your own music program! If you have an idea for a traditional or unique program, we can work with you to find the necessary resources. We can provide Kodály, Orff or general music and movement for the younger grades. We can help you set up traditional band and orchestra classes.
  
  

Professional Development

• Professional Workshops
  We provide teachers, artists, therapists and counselors with a variety of training workshops and courses in world music and music as therapeutic intervention, with continuing credit from San Francisco State University.
  
  
• Music Integrated Learning Environment (MILE)
  Through this program, music teachers learn to co-teach with kindergarten through fifth grade classroom teachers on sequential music instruction, language literacy and math literacy, preparing students for band and orchestra in the fourth and fifth grade. Research-based curricular and assessment practices first developed by Dr. Larry Scripp are being implemented in six schools. This program is part of the Learning Laboratory School Network, a national network working to strengthen music learning in schools in conjunction with the Music-in-Education National Consortium.
  

Community Connections

• Adopt an Instrument
  We created this original, year-round instrument donation program. MuST annually accepts roughly $100,000 worth of musical instruments from the public and places them in the hands of talented Bay Area school children. Watch the news coverage of this program at Emery Middle School and at Claremont Middle School in Oakland.
  
  
• Website
  Our website is devoted to student creativity, and features interviews with celebrity role models, mentors and young musicians, as well as tips for practicing, and links to dozens of other helpful sites. For music educators, it offers curricula for unique music programs, guidelines for starting or strengthening a school music program, and links to job boards.
  
  
• Advocacy and Free Consulting
  We offer free planning assistance to parents, educators, schools and school districts to start or strengthen music and arts programs. Although the state of California has slashed its budget by 10%, it is still providing public schools with $18 per student for arts education. In light of this across-the-board cut, what kind of music program will your school have next fall? We provide free arts planning to ensure the best music and arts education for your students. In the area of advocacy, we facilitate planning meetings, provide educational resources and give tips on how to work with legislators and the media to develop programs that are resistant to budget cutbacks.
  
  
• School Sponsorships & Fiscal Sponsorships
  MuST sponsors "start-ups" in music and arts education, currently at John Muir Elementary in San Francisco, thanks to an anonymous donor!
  
  We also serve as fiscal sponsor for Enriching Lives through Music, Bayvox, an online repository of interviews done by Harry O, and Musicians' Union Local 6's Live Music Task Force. Candlevision, Kids Make Music, and Little Kids Rock all became non-profits after starting under MuST's umbrella. If you have a school, community band or a new music or arts education idea that needs a fiscal sponsor, just contact us.
  
  
• Special Events
  We seek to involve and educate the general public about the importance of music education by means of our annual Stars on Staff Celebrity Waiter Luncheon, performances by well-known musicians, smaller grassroots events, and free community workshops and drum circles.