On September 27th, CNAfME teamed up with the mentoring program and Tri-M to host the fall KCOMTEPS conference. As the CNAfME State President, I, along with the help of Professor Brett Martinez, director of bands at Butler Community College, and Dr. Katelyn Peterson, Associate director of choral activities at Wichita State University, planned the collegiate portion of the day, known as KCOMTEPS, or the Kansas Consortium of Music Teacher Education Professors and Students. It was hosted at Mayberry Fine Arts Magnet Middle School in Wichita. The event included 125 registrants, 11 breakout sessions, including a young teacher panel consisting of five new teachers, and three featured keynote sessions presented by Dr. Catheryn Foster, Associate Professor of Practice & Program Director for Graduate Studies in Music Education at Virginia Tech. The topics of each session discussed the changes and challenges teachers face throughout their careers, error detection and correction, and knowing the community in which you teach.
Our first round of breakout sessions aloud participants to choose between a session on Classroom Management, given by Jayme Hayes, Director of Bands at Mayberry Fine Arts Magnet Middle School, and Mariachi 101 given by Panya Amphone, Director of Orchestra at Mayberry Fine Arts Magnet Middle School.
Our second breakout session was all about repertoire. We had 4 options for participants to choose from. Choir Repertoire was hosted by Abbi Faflick, Choir Director at Wichita Southeast High School, Band repertoire was with Joe Clements, Band Director at The Independent School in Wichita, KS, Orchestra repertoire was with Panya Amphone, and we even had an Elementary session with Reed Bishop, who is a the General Music Educator at McCollum Elementary.
Breakout session 3 consisted of 5 options. Two of these options were for instrument repair, String instrument repair was with Jordan Bollig, and wind instrument repair was with Trevor Boudreau from Damm Music Center in Wichita. We also had a session on Networking, hosted by Micah Bolton from Derby High School and a session on Auxiliary Percussion with Adam Tilberg, a band director from Wichita East High School. The final breakout session we had was Conducting with Erik Stone, band director at Gordon Parks Academy.
Our goal for the Young Teacher Panel was to be as diverse as possible. We ensured we had every grade level and most concentrations covered. During this, students were able to ask our young teachers questions about the first few years of teaching. This year’s panel included Tyler Kueser from Valley Center, Ian Vajnar from Andover, Kyrie Thomas from Wichita, Matt Treto from Haven, and Katie Wasko from Douglass. Despite being nearly an hour in length, we ran out of time before we were able to get to everyone’s questions.
