Hello, MMEA!

On June 12th, 2024 MMEA Leadership and Collegiate Members participated in NAfME’s Hill Day where we met with Maryland Leaders in Congress and advocated for Music Education. We were able to meet in person for conversations with staffers of 7 of our 10 Maryland leaders on The Hill, and still made it to the offices of the remaining 3 to drop off materials outlining our key points and priorities for Maryland Music Education.

What was truly inspiring was not only being able to advocate as a current educator, but to have students from Frostburg State and Salisbury Universities present to share their experiences as current music education students and future educators. The opportunity to share our personal stories, concerns, and joys of the profession as constituents was a remarkable opportunity. Many of the staffers we met with were products of music education themselves, so we truly felt this connection and united voice throughout many of our meetings.

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In partnership with the NAfME advocacy team, we were able to highlight programs that supported our students, an experienced and diverse educator workforce, and music and the arts as a whole. We additionally advocated for legislation that focused on music education for all students and teacher recruitment and retention. See more details about the programs and legislations we advocated for below:

FY 2025 NAfME Fact Sheet: Programs

FY 2025 NAfME Fact Sheet: Legislation​​​​​​​​​​

After a long day of advocacy we joined all of our other state music education leaders in song to close out the day! We left our day invigorated, inspired, and ready to advocate for Maryland Music Education even further at the local and state level and are eager to share more advocacy resources with our teachers and students in the coming months. Looking forward to all that is yet to come!

Sidney Clarke-Lequerique
MMEA Advocacy Chair