March is considered Music in Our Schools Month, and the AASA national conference in New Orleans will capture that distinction from the get-go. 

Attendees at General Session 1 on Thursday afternoon, March 6, will be treated to an explosion of sound and colorful visual elements in the convention center’s large assembly hall.  

Student performers from high schools governed by AASA members in three states will show off their work in a short video produced by AASA in the weeks leading up to this year’s conference. Then a student choir from Livingston Collegiate Academy in New Orleans will deliver a live performance through the Hall C aisles and on stage. Livingston was founded in 2016-17 on the site of a middle school that closed in 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina.  

The students in the video come from these schools and districts: 

• Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet School and Cane Ridge High School from the Metro Nashville Public Schools in Nashville, Tenn.;  
• Hurricane High School from Putnam County School District in Hurricane, W. Va.; 
• Capital High School from Kanawha School District in Charleston, W.Va.; and
• Parkway North High School in Parkway C-2 School District in St. Louis, Mo. 

Three of the superintendents whose student musicians are featured are expected to be in attendance at the AASA conference: Adrienne Battle of Nashville, John Hudson of Putnam County and Keith Marty of Parkway North. 

The Save the Music Foundation helped identify the scholastic musical groups. The foundation partners with AASA on an annual award that will be presented to a superintendent at General Session 3 on Saturday, March 8. 

(Jay Goldman is editor-in-chief of AASA’s Conference Daily Online and editor of School Administrator magazine.)