©2025 Ohio Music Education Association
Committee Updates
Thank you, MIOSM® 2025!
Grace Dickmann
In the blink of an eye, the 40th anniversary of Music In Our Schools Month® has come to a close. We hope you had the opportunity to celebrate with your students, parents, colleagues, administrators, and community members. Below are some highlights from what some of our schools throughout Ohio did to celebrate this March. We hope that by sharing these ideas, that we can be “United Through Music” and inspire you for potential ways to celebrate MIOSM® in years to come!
Pandora-Gilboa Local Schools in Pandora, Ohio, had some fun and inventive ways to celebrate MIOSM®. Choir director Kelly Ortiz shared that her students read facts about music every Friday in a special segment of their student news. She also shared that the teachers in her school did a “masked singer” event, where they made audio recordings of themselves singing different song segments. Some teachers chose to sing alone, while others chose to sing with a small group. These recordings were shared each week on their weekly school news, and students had to guess which teacher was singing. Kelly said that the students really enjoyed getting to guess the masked singer within their school, and the staff had a great time making these recordings for the students!
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At my school (Leipsic Local Schools), we also chose several ways to celebrate MIOSM®. One of the ways we celebrated was inspired through an advocacy session presented at OMEA PDC, presented by Danielle Shaub, John Radesh and Paul Glader. During our school’s March Board of Education meeting, a variety of music students were asked to attend and present a short message to our board members in honor of MIOSM®. Students talked about band, choir, musicals, and elementary general music to our board members and shared how the music programs within our school have positively impacted their lives. After students shared their talking points, they presented each administrator and member of the BOE with a Leipsic Music quarter zip to wear to future concerts and performances. Several members of the BOE wrote afterwards commending the meaningful speeches that students gave, and our administrators have already proudly been wearing their new quarter zips around the school.
We also did a school-wide “March Madness Bracket” during Music In Our Schools Month®. To complete this bracket, I asked teachers within our school to suggest their favorite songs (school-appropriate, of course!). 16 were chosen, and students voted via Google Forms on which songs made it to the next round each week. The winning song was sung by our principals over the announcements at the end of the month. Our students and staff loved participating, and our principals had a blast with their performance! Our final bracket with the total number of votes is shown in the picture below.
Hopefully these ideas will inspire you on activities to do within your school for next year’s Music In Our Schools Month®. While the month of March is over, we all know that music in our schools is worth celebrating year-round. Don’t stop advocating for your programs, and remember that when we are “United Through Music,” we make the world a better place!
Be sure to check out the other exciting events that happened around the state for MIOSM in the next section of the TRIAD!
Grace Dickmann is in her 4th year of teaching K-12 Choir at Leipsic Local Schools. She also serves as Leipsic’s Assistant Marching Band director and school musical director. Grace graduated from Findlay High School (‘17) and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from Bowling Green State University (‘21). Grace currently serves as the OMEA State MIOSM® chair as well as the Advocacy Chair for OMEA District 3.