MMEA - Massachusetts Music Educators Association
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Joint Committee on Education Commonwealth of Massachusetts «Title» «Name_full» «FaxEmail» Dear «Title» «Name_last»: The contents of Bill No. H111, Docket No. HD462, have come to our attention. It is our view that this bill, while it is on the surface an estimable effort to safeguard the health of our students, is unnecessary, costly, and might materially interfere with the provision of music education to the students of our Commonwealth. We ask that you consider the attached document from MENC: the National Association for Music Education in your consideration of the bill. Sincerely, David Neves Michael M. LaCava
June 24, 2009
Music educators nationwide are deeply and actively
concerned about the health and well-being of their
students. MENC: The National Association for Music
Education adopted in 2007 a position statement affirming
the responsibility of music educators to “become
substantially involved in injury prevention by teaching
health-conscious music-related practices to students.”
Concerns in this statement center on hearing health,
physical health, and psychological health. Notably
absent from the statement is any mention of
extraordinary efforts to avoid the transmission of
communicable diseases. This is because:
·
Almost without
exception music educators are aware of common-sense
precautions that are necessary to reduce chances of
spreading infection through instruments,
·
Almost without exception music educators take these
common-sense precautions, and
·
We are aware of no large-scale, credible studies that
establish that the transmission of communicable disease
in through the vector of music instruments is a problem.
While MENC and music educators nationwide would
always be in favor of means to protect the health of
students to whom we dedicate our professional lives, we
urge caution on the part of any legislative or
administrative bodies considering actions that may seem
to serve students’ health without
·
Allowing music educators to make
professional judgments on the best specific methods or
products to use to achieve these worthwhile goals, with
the following guidelines: o Teachers should use appropriate and publicly available information to inform those judgments. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticide Programs lists 40 products registered with the EPA as Antimicrobial Sterilizers at www.epa.gov/oppad001/chemregindex.htm.
·
Establishing that whatever method or
method is employed has demonstrated efficacy not just in
eradicating germs in a laboratory situation, but in
control of the spread of disease in real-life
situations. Simply put, the imposition of new and
potentially costly methods for control of disease should
only take place where it is clear that diseases, and not
just some disease pathogens that may not actually be
transmitted by contact with musical instruments, are
truly controlled. This point is important because
teachers should focus on the obvious sources of
transmission of infection (i.e., mouthpieces), taking
special care to either sterilize those parts of
instruments that could reasonably lead to direct
transmission of disease pathogens by thorough cleaning
with an appropriate agent or by demanding that students,
even those who share instruments, obtain and use
individual mouthpieces, reeds, and other elements that
make contact with the students’ mouths (this latter
process is already widespread). It is not clear that
there is any documentation of the need to sterilize the
entire instrument when students share brass, wind,
string, or percussion instruments in the course of music
study.
·
Ensuring that the methods employed to
meet the health needs of students are either (a) easy to
implement, with minimal disruption to the school program
and minimal additional expenditure on the part of
schools and parents, or (b) come with sufficient
appropriated monies to avoid disruption to the
instructional program.
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