Wayzata Elementary String Program Oral History Project: Interview with Virginia Clark

Titles: Wayzata Elementary String Program Oral History Project: Interview with Virginia Clark (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Virginia D. Clark holds the Bachelor of Science degree from St. Cloud State University, and the Master of Arts and PhD from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. Prior to coming to the Wayzata school district, she was employed in the Iowa City, Algona, and Solon, Iowa, schools, where she served in a variety of roles-teaching at the kindergarten, second, third and fourth grade level, serving as Elementary Media Specialist, Teacher Effectiveness Trainer and Principal. After coming to Wayzata (Minnesota) District #284 in 1991 she served as Principal of Oakwood Elementary until 2000, when she became the District's Director of Professional Development for three years. Ginny will begin her thirty-first year in education in the fall of 2003 at Wayzata's Greenwood Elementary School, where she is serving as Principal. In addition to her demanding career in educational administration and leadership she has been active in several professional organizations: National Association of Elementary School Principals, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Phi Delta Kappa, and the National Staff Development Council. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Ginny discusses the value of the Wayzata elementary string program, describes its structure, the source of instruments for the students, the program cuts and discusses the virtue of music education in general. She describes what she perceives as shortcomings of the Wayzata program - the large number of children taking private lessons, the retention level, the audition requirement for Touring Strings, the difficulty of pulling children from class, a lack of teamwork between string and classroom teachers, the parent attendance requirement that had existed in earlier years and the power of the parents organization. Ginny concludes by presenting her vision of ideal music education - an offering that will include all children. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Interviewer Lynne Weber came to the Central Middle School office of Virginia Clark to conduct an interview on January 3, 2002. Because the recording equipment malfunctioned and it was not possible to record the interview Ms. Clark offered to respond to the printed script and offer her memories and assessment of the Wayzata elementary string program by speaking into a tape recorder from her home, which she did. No interviewer was present. Ms. Clark mailed the cassette tape to LW, who then followed with a phone call to Clark at an agreed-upon time. Again, the conversation could not be recorded so finally Ms. Clark summarized the content of the conversation in the e-mail appended to the end of this transcript.

Dates

• 01/04/2002 (Creation)

Creation

• interviewer: Weber, Lynne
• interviewee: Clark, Virginia D.

Identifiers

• Library Call Number: OH 109
• Accession Number: AV2007.12.6

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

• Oral History - Project, MHS Collection, project: 'Wayzata Elementary String Program Oral History Project' <OH 109>

Quantity: 1.5 hours sound cassette 7 pages transcript

Format

• Content Category: sound recordings
• Content Category: text

Measurements

• 00:21:31 running time

Subjects

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