With music teachers in TUSD becoming harder and harder to find, teachers from other schools will need to take double shifts to teach at 2 schools. That’s exactly what Sahuaro High School’s orchestra teacher-who has been at Sahuaro since 2004- Mr. Marrs is doing. He’s teaching at both Sahuaro and Magee Middle School this year. He is teaching for three periods at Sahuaro and three periods at Magee.

Mr. Marrs says, “The hardest part about working at two schools is that I have very little, if any, free time, and the classroom management with the middle schoolers is really tough.” Mr. Marrs also states that teaching orchestra at a middle school has its challenges – they are not as mature as high school students, which makes classroom management trickier.  “The problems we have are not about F natural or F sharp.”  

However, Mr. Marrs is trying to find new ways to make the classroom more like a game in order to help the middle schoolers grasp musical and behavioral concepts. By doing this Mr. Marrs hopes to help make them more mature and hopefully, will make the class be more of what orchestra is supposed to be.

In other words, Mr. Marrs is having a tough year, so when you see him, give him one of his signature explosive fist bumps and tell him you appreciate him.