EVERETT – About 85 band parents and students protested at an Everett School Board meeting Tuesday against the involuntary transfer of teacher Jim Johnson, who has led the Cascade High marching band for 15 years.
“We’re like a family, and we feel like they’re taking away our father,” Stephanie Jasper, 16, said before the meeting, where she carried a “Let Mr. J STAY” sign.
Carole Breysse spoke on behalf of parents supporting Johnson, who will be moved to another school.
“He has developed skills and leadership abilities in our children and engaged their hearts and minds,” said Breysse, speaking at the standing-room-only meeting, where people spilled into a hallway.
Johnson has declined to comment on the matter. Administrators are not talking about the details, citing privacy rules.
“In this case, there was some failure on the part of the employee to follow district procedures,” said Gay Campbell, a district spokeswoman, declining to elaborate.
School administrators will meet with band boosters at 7 p.m. today in the high school library to discuss their concerns.
Cascade teacher Ann Morgan, who has a daughter in the band, urged the board to consider the decision’s impact on staff morale. She has worked with Johnson for eight years.
“In those eight years, I’ve never known him to be anything less than professional,” Morgan said.
The women received thunderous applause from the crowd. But students afterward said they felt dejected.
“I feel like our opinions got dismissed,” said Andrea Woods, 18, a senior drum major. “You feel helpless.”
Longtime booster Donna Day, who volunteered for 10 years until the youngest of her three sons graduated in 2001, said Johnson could be tough to communicate with, and was at times disorganized.
“It wasn’t always easy,” Day said. “But still, to treat someone who’s had such an influence on the program and to move him to who knows where … it seems unfair.”
Johnson is a marching band guru, having spent about 35 years in the field, including at three schools where he started the marching bands himself.
Enjoying the support of a broad volunteer base, the band under Johnson has traveled to Australia, Great Britain and Russia. Most recently, the 175-member band took first place at a spring-break festival in Florida.
Last fall, the band hosted the Puget Sound Festival of Bands and won the Spirit Award in the Bon-Macy’s post-Thanksgiving Day Parade in Seattle.
Johnson’s transfer comes after a former Cascade band assistant was convicted of first-degree child molestation in October.
A Pierce County jury found Puyallup attorney Jeffrey Day guilty of fondling an 11-year-old former client. Day led the percussion section of Cascade’s band from September 1997 to March 2004 as a paid supplemental coach.
Johnson was responsible for selecting assistants, who are either hired as coaches or taken on as volunteers. All new hires undergo a background check. The instructors also include his son, Jim Johnson Jr., who also works at Cascade High.
Administrators do not yet know where they will place Johnson next year. A search for his replacement began two weeks ago; administrators hope to set interviews by June.
“It is our intention to continue this excellent program,” Superintendent Carol Whitehead told those gathered Tuesday.
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.
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