SH school board hears from parents and students upset over choir leadership change

NEW PALESTINE — A change at the top of the New Palestine High School choir department led dozens of students and parents to show up at the most recent Southern Hancock School Board meeting. Several people spoke to the board to share their displeasure with the move during the meeting held at New Palestine Elementary School on Monday night.

Shortly before the end of the school year, district officials informed NPHS choir director Steve Beebe, who has worked for the district for 18 years, that they didn’t have enough students interested in choir at the high school for him to continue on there. At the time, an administrative decision was made to move Beebe from the high school, where he also worked as the show choir supervisor, to the middle school to try and build the choir program back up, district officials said.

Beebe made the decision to break his affiliation with the NPHS show choir program, an extracurricular group, telling the students that if he wasn’t going to be at the high school, he really didn’t feel like he would be able to be their show choir coach next year.

Beebe gathered the choir students and informed them about what was happening during a lengthy and emotional goodbye just before the school year ended.

Many parents and students were not happy when they heard Beebe was out, and that the choir director position at NPHS would be part time. Choir supporters took to social media to express their displeasure and planned to let the district know they wanted Beebe to remain at NPHS as their teacher and to continue working with the show choirs.

However, shortly before Monday’s school board meeting, board president Dan Walker informed the gathered crowd that Beebe turned in his resignation with the district that afternoon, meaning he was leaving the district completely after nearly two decades.

The announcement by Walker didn’t stop parents and students from speaking up at the board meeting. Tracey Ebert, a parent who has had two children go through the NPHS choir program with Beebe as the director, fought back tears as she told the board how much he helped her children, particularly her daughter who is studying music in college.

“Without Mr. Beebe, I doubt my daughter would be where she is today with a true career and a chance to have a true impact,” Ebert said. “It’s not just a choir, it’s a career.”

Ebert also stated that Beebe gave her son, who was also in choir at NPHS, life-coping skills and that Beebe made more of a positive impact on her son than others at the school.

Another parent added Beebe created a culture within the show choirs that fostered acceptance and safe spaces for kids while providing unconditional love and support to the students. The parent told the school board members that the district needed more teachers like Beebe and not less.

James Buist, New Palestine, stated there are a lot of people upset with the district’s decision to remove Beebe from the high school, and he was particularly unhappy that Beebe is now gone from the district.

“This is an injustice that needs to be rectified,” Buist said. “I just have to call a bologna sandwich on this … I don’t believe this is a half-time position. I don’t think that is a truthful representation of what is going on.”

Superintendent Lisa Lantrip spoke and told the group that the high school will have a choir teacher at NPHS next year, but on a part-time basis and she also noted the district will support the show choir programs.

“We have interviews set up and we have a couple of parent boosters on the committee,” Lantrip said. “We will have a high school choir, the same as what we had this year. That’s two choirs — a show choir and a mixed choir.”

The Daily Reporter reached out to Beebe, but he said it was too soon to talk about any future plans or why he was no longer with the district. He would only state that there was far more behind his departure, which was surprising to even him.