It's the morning after the band concert, and Rebecca Carpenter is feeling a bit worn out. Last night, the St. Clair gym was packed wall-to-wall. The AC stopped working, many had to stand, and the performance wasn't brief—the fifth-grade band, sixth-grade band, and junior-high band all took turns playing music learned in Mrs. Carpenter's class. 

Despite her fatigue, I can tell Rebecca is happy with how it went. Just three years ago, there weren't enough students signed up to fill even one band. Now, thanks to Rebecca, St. Clair Schools has four.

"It's fun to watch their knowledge grow. They went from being in a disaster area," Rebecca told me. We are sitting across from one another in the St. Clair cafeteria. Outside, the sun pounds down on farm fields. Inside, it is cooler, though restless end-of-school-year energy flows from the teenagers lounging nearby. 

Rebecca is the primary instrumental music instructor at St. Clair, but the very first thing she tells me is that she's actually retired. After teaching music for 34 years (33 of which were spent in the Maple River district), Rebecca took an early retirement in 2020. 

But just two years later, she was summoned back into education. In 2022, the St. Clair band teacher resigned unexpectedly. The program was in disarray, and enrollment had plummeted. The district reached out to Rebecca in hopes that she might turn things around. 

She did just that. Along the way, she got a little creative. 

"I decided I'm going to have to tap into every resource out there," she said.

St. Clair isn't a large school—it serves about 900 K-12 students in eastern Blue Earth County. Even still, with only twelve kids signed up for music in junior high and ten in high school, there wasn't enough enthusiasm to sustain the program. When Rebecca started, she found that the juniors and seniors were learning at a fifth-grade level in music.

So she decided to call in backup in the form of former colleague Michelle Roche, a percussionist in the Mankato Symphony orchestra, and applied for a Prairie Lakes grant to compensate Michelle for her time. During the 2022 school year, Michelle introduced students in 5th through 12th grades to the building block of music: rhythm. 

Rebecca said Michelle's expertise and enthusiasm that first year lit a fire under the St. Clair band program. In addition to lessons, she started a percussion ensemble that performed midway through the school year. By the 2024 school year, the number of students signed up for music had grown. 

Encouraged by the boost, the pair decided to expand their curriculum to focus on drumming styles from around the world, including Latin American, Caribbean, Irish, and Japanese. A new World Music unit was added to the 5th and 6th grade general music curriculum. Soon after, World Music was expanded to junior high. And in 2024, St. Clair was finally able to return to having a junior high band, a high school band, a sixth-grade band, and a fifth-grade band. Between 2022 and 2024, St. Clair went from a single band of 35 kids to four bands with 177 kids.

Rebecca grew up in Mankato and majored in Music Education at St. Olaf College. Her first full-time teaching gig landed her back in south central at the Minnesota Lake School. She soon met her husband, a teacher as well. Their two children also became educators.

Rebecca said she quickly learned that teaching is only half the job of an educator. At Maple River, she was constantly fundraising for the program. Now, instead of worrying about sourcing the next dollar, Rebecca and Michelle have the mental space to sit down at the end of each school day and brainstorm about what is working and what is not.

"I felt like all I was doing was selling pizzas and butter braids and budgeting for the next field trip," she said. "'[With funding provided] I've gotten off that merry-go-round, and I get to just focus on teaching."

As of May, Michelle formed an all-school drumline and has begun planning music education at the fourth-grade level. Next year, St. Clair may perform alongside the Mankato State University percussion ensembles. With the re-establishment of the music program, more arts opportunities are popping up at St. Clair, including an elementary theater program. The Drama Club is working on incorporating a live pit orchestra. 

"Music educators have to continue to look for those outside things. Get creative with your curriculum, promote, promote, and explore," Rebecca said. "Come up with a project, find someone to work with, and you can engage kids."