Andress High School without a band director two weeks into school year

The high school football season is underway and Andress High School has been unable to hire a new band director.

Parents of band members told ABC-7 they are frustrated the school has not been able to hire a new band director two weeks into the school year.

“There’s a lot of effort that goes into being part of the band,” Northeast resident Shelly Clark said. “There’s early morning practices, there’s dedication not only on the student’s part, but as well the parents.”

Clark felt the need to reach out to ABC-7 after attending last Friday’s Andress game.

“I feel that sometimes, as a Northeast (El Pasoan), sometimes, our kids may be cheated,” Clark said. “I really doubt this would happen at Franklin or at Eastlake, some of these newer, bigger schools.”

An EPISD spokesperson told ABC-7 the previous band director at Andress High was hired away by the Socorro Independent School District “well into the summer.”

That’s left the Andress band at Friday night football games, like last week’s game against Hanks at Allan Sepkowitz Stadium, sitting in the stands instead of taking the field and performing.

“They get the fans hyped up, they get the football players hyped,” Clark said. “I think it’s a respect issue to give that back to them.”

EPISD spokesperson Melissa Martinez said the job was offered to someone just before the start of the school year, but the person declined.

“This is the second time the job has been posted and will go out for a round of interviews,” Martinez said. “Any music teacher or orchestra teacher can’t necessarily walk in and teach band. Band is a very unique skill.”

Martinez acknowledged the timing is bad.

“It’s not certainly anything we would wish or hope for and so we are trying to get somebody in place as soon as we can,” Martinez said. “But we also want the right person, because they’ve lost two band directors. We don’t want them to have to go through this again.”

ABC-7 asked to speak with band students, but were told the Andress principal didn’t want to interrupt the school day.

Martinez said a substitute is now in place and they have hired some outside help from UTEP that’s expected to arrive soon.

Andress has another home game on Friday.