President's Message - Wayne Mallette

Renew. Refresh. Refocus. Rethink. Reimagine. These 5 words were the focus of our 2022 NJMEA State Conference. I hope all of those who attended the conference were able to embrace this theme and left the conference with a renewed focus on being the best music educator possible.

It was such an honor to greet you all at our first inperson state conference since February 2020! This conference would not have been possible without the creative team behind the scenes. I would like to thank Marie Malara and her team for their unwavering commitment to organizing a conference that is exciting and meaningful for the attendees. I would also like to thank Bill McDevitt for his strategic thinking and drive which were necessary to bring this conference together. This year, the conference strands were organized by the Division Chairs. Thank you Mike Doheney, Susan Meuse, Nick Mossa, Amy Burns, and Shawna Longo for dedicating the time to find the talent and construct the conference sessions to best suit your needs.

Our culminating All-State Band and Choir concert was the highlight of our conference. To see our students performing live on stage again reminded us of why we do what we do! I would like to thank our Band (Nick Mossa) and Choral (Mike Doheney) Procedures chairs and committees for organizing the rehearsals and concert. A very special thank you goes to Joe Cantaffa for creating a professional All-State concert experience.

As with every event we do, we are assessing how the conference went this year, and look forward to making it even more meaningful next year.

As my tenure as President progresses, I am turning our focus to the actionable steps of our strategic planning area of diversity. The IDEA committee, which is led by our IDEA Chair Katy Broadhead, our Advocacy Chair Libby Gopal, and IDEA liaison Bobby Hamm has been helping us put policy and practices in place which will create a more diverse organization and ultimately impact our students. I want to thank them for helping to shape our latest survey of teacher practices and helping us steer our latest efforts to create a more open and diverse AllState experience for our students.

One opportunity I would also like to highlight is the Crescendo Foundation. This organization is committed to providing financial resources to students who want to participate in our honor ensembles. If you have a student who you feel could benefit from this type of financial support, information can be found on the NJMEA website under the All-State Section.

While we have all been dramatically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, our young music educators may have been the most affected. Whether it has been a virtual student teaching experience or a hybrid start to their first year of teaching, our novice educators have had their foundational years marred by this pandemic. I want to thank our Past President, Patrick O’Keefe for his leadership in the organization of our NJMEA Mentor Teacher Program. It is vital to our profession that we support our youngest professionals. This program will have a last impact on our state music education field.

Music Educators, as we progress in this last leg of the school year, please remember to be kind to yourselves. NJMEA is here to support you, so please feel free to reach out to let us know how we can best serve you.

Best!