Budget cuts can’t stifle the choir at Detroit Southeastern High

By Eric T. Campbell and Zenobia Jeffries

DETROIT — Students at Detroit Southeastern High School have
staged three walk-outs and a sit-in after DPS budget cuts left them
with no music programs.

In a final show of protest, the Voices of Southeastern chorale
singers gained entry to the March 11 Michigan State Vocal Music
Association Choral Festival over the objection of their former
music director and the director of Fine Arts for the Detroit Public
Schools.

“We saw past how good or bad we would be — it was just about
being able to sing,” said tenor Leroy Lewis, an eleventh-grade
student at Southeastern. “I felt like we accomplished something. It
felt good that we were able to come together as students. We won
the battle but not the war.”

Recent deficit adjustments by Emergency Financial Manager Robert
Bobb left Southeastern with only three choral groups in 2011.
School administrators, forced by increased budget restrictions, cut
the remaining courses of Southeastern’s music program in
February.

The piano accompanist was laid off during the first week of the
month. The choral director, Pheleica McCall, was transferred to the
Catherine Ferguson school as a substitute two weeks later.

Additional cuts were made to Southeastern’s drama department and
the widely recognized robotics team. Twenty of Southeastern’s
finest vocalists found themselves with an approaching competition
deadline and no program.

“We knew that we had to do something to show that you can’t mess
with our music program,” Lewis told the Michigan Citizen during a
phone interview.

With the assistance of the organization BAMN (The Coalition to
Defend Afffirmative Action, Integration, Immigrant Rights and Fight
for Equality By Any Means Necessary), students drafted petitions
and organized afternoon walkouts starting the week of Feb. 15.