Teachers,

We are in the final stretch of our school year. Many of you are probably preparing for end of the year performances and trying to get those last few lessons in before school is out. We wish all of you the very best as you finish up your school year!

We have exciting news about our 10th Annual Elementary Music Festival. We are pleased to announce that we will continue our association with Samford University as they host our 10th Annual Elementary Music Festival. It will be Friday, October 21st and our clinicians will be Roger Sams and Vicki Portis. Many of you will remember Roger Sams from our 2016 AMEA In-service. He presented several sessions and also brought us some amazing materials through his partnership with “Music is Elementary.” Vicki Portis is no stranger to our Elementary Division. She is a world-class elementary music educator who was just recently inducted in the AMEA Hall of Fame. She was also our first clinician for our festival, so it is fitting that she returns to celebrate our 10th year. Our festival directors, Ben and Kristina Sisco, have emailed out information about the festival, and we are looking to have around 450 students participate in this special 10th year anniversary music festival.

We also are in the planning stages of our Annual Fall Workshop following the festival on Saturday, October 22nd. We hope to have both our festival clinicians share from their wealth of knowledge of elementary music methods. We will keep you informed of the place and time of this workshop as we finalize these details.

There are several summer opportunities for professional development that I want to share with you as well. We have Orff Level I and Level II Certification Courses being offered at Samford University on June 20 – July 1. We also have the Kodaly Levels 1 & 2 Certifications classes at Vestavia Hills Elementary School East hosted by Deanna Bell on July 11-22. Lastly, we have the 2nd Annual East Alabama Music Workshop being held at Grace UMC in Auburn on August 27th. We hope you will take advantage of these opportunities to grow as a music educator. If you have any questions about any of these workshops, please contact us at elementaryamea@gmail.com and we will be glad to forward you specific information on any of these three workshops.

Lastly, if you are not receiving emails from our Elementary Division, please send us an email at elementaryamea@gmail.com and we will be glad to add you to our email list. We want to keep in touch with you, so sign up today for our email list. Again, I wish all of you the very best as you finish this school year!

Sincerely,
Cliff Huckabee, President
AMEA Elementary Division