Thank you for supporting Homer OPUS

Homer OPUS is a nonprofit organization that delivers string-based music programs to local youth. We believe that broad access to music education changes children’s lives and transforms communities and we help to build community by creating opportunities for youth and adults to create music together. We’d like to thank our most recent donors for their support — Global Credit Union; The Gary Thomas 100 Men Project; the KLEPS, Willow, and Horn Section Funds managed by the Homer Foundation; and the Richard L. and Diane M. Block Foundation. With these funds, we’ll continue to expand our programs with the goal of making string music education accessible to all youth. Recent grants have supported the cost of delivering our free and low-cost programs and the purchase of 20 new violin kits.

OPUS engages 250 students annually and thousands of southern Kenai Peninsula residents who enjoy live performances. To make music education as widely accessible as possible, we offer free music programs in the schools, engaging some of the region’s youngest residents and their families. Our programs are resoundingly supported by families, schools, and the Homer and Anchor Point communities. Teachers and administrators witness the benefits to students in terms of readiness to learn and positive interventions. And families and the community at large share the joy these students experience playing in ensemble and being part of something larger than themselves. By providing the youngest members of our community with a chance to create music together, and venues where diverse families sit side by side to enjoy the collaborative music-making of their children, we feel we are knitting critical community bonds, one musical note at a time. Learn more at homeropus.org and @homer_opus.

Thank you to everyone supporting our efforts.

Christina Whiting, Program Manager

Homer OPUS

Dear Homer families,

Values are defined as a person’s principles and standards of behavior. If you want to understand a person’s values, do not ask them what they value, simply observe their behaviors. People’s behaviors generally and accurately reveal what they believe is important in life.

Recently a series of malicious ads were published in the Homer News targeting a Homer area neighbor (and presumably her family). Specifically, the political director of the Alaska AFL-CIO, Kim Hays, who additionally chairs the political action committee Putting Alaskans First (housed in the AFL-CIO Anchorage office), approved a negative attack ad published by the Homer News stating “SARAH VANCE DOES NOT SHARE HOMER’S VALUES.” The print was shouting in red and yellow capitalized type on a black background. Combined with the PAC’s selected photo of Rep. Vance, the ad appeared to be trope like and failed to identify any specific values that the Vance family holds that are so contrary to their neighbors. Additionally, the state-mandated funding disclosure was barely legible in the print edition of these front page ads.

Putting Alaskans First states online that it is fighting to ensure that working families’ interests are heard. The Alaska AFL-CIO states that it also strives to represent the interests of workers, even those not represented by unions. Yet working collaboratively, they chose to behave in a manner that needlessly attacked a working family in Homer instead of focusing on specific issues this PAC disagreed with and why their policies are better for our children’s education. Putting Alaskans First’s behavior in these ads was malicious and reckless.

In my time as an educator in Alaska, I have observed families to be hard-working, responsive, considerate, and also diverse in their viewpoints. Homer is no exception to this. In addition, as a school administrator, I was impressed with how Homer families were consistently tolerant of their neighbors’ seemingly opposing beliefs. While it is not my place to speak for all of Homer with respect to its “values,” I will ask that Kim Hays and Putting Alaskans First do their homework in the future before disrespecting the many families in Homer who share the Vance family’s values. The PAC could have simply disagreed on policy and the levels of government involvement necessary to enact their stated values without being intentionally mean spirited.

The challenges facing Homer area schools will neither be solved by who is elected to the state Legislature nor by how much money is thrown at them. How schools are funded and structured is more complex than most Homer residents dive deeply into.

An example of this was the postcard-writing campaign that Homer High School’s student council organized at the tail end of a pep rally. The study body leaders had excellent intentions but did not take the time to fully educate themselves (or their peers writing many of the postcards) in how school funding plays out in terms of base student allocation, pupil/teacher ratio, average class size and activities/athletics funding.

As a result, the enthusiasm and sincerity in what the students wrote was very present, but the information communicated to Rep. Vance was neither researched nor as accurate as it could have been. Personally, I was not surprised when Rep. Vance chose to publicly apologize for negatively commenting on the quality of the high school students’ correspondence given the circumstances of the situation. Her apology was sincere and presumably accepted by anyone who values having neighbors who own their behavior and commit to do better in the future.

Regarding the top funders of Putting Alaskans First, specifically John Arnold (a retired Enron executive of Houston, Texas), the NEA Advocacy Fund of Washington, D.C., and the NEA-Alaska PACE of Juneau, they might consider putting their collective (monetary) efforts together to make a difference in the lives of the valuable paraprofessional, custodial and other support staff whose salaries and benefits have consistently not advanced on par with certificated staff members.

In the meantime, they could choose to publicly apologize to Rep. Vance and her family for the divisive rhetoric in an ad clearly designed to pit families against each other based on political party affiliation. Homer area educators and families must continue to place the love of their children and their neighbors above the malicious rhetoric being pushed on them by increasingly partisan unions and their well-funded political action committees.

Thank you for listening,

Sunny Mall