Teacher Shortage Leaves Students with Flat Notes

Private music lessons can cost anywhere from $1,040 to $4,680 a year in Northwest Arkansas. But that’s the good news. The bad news is many students have a hard time finding teachers to take lessons from.

“In Rogers — where they have the string [program] in the schools — there are a lot of kids there that would like to take private lessons, but there aren’t teachers available,” said Judy Rownack, who teaches private violin and piano lessons in Fayetteville.

While Rogers and Bentonville have a string program, Fayetteville and Springdale don’t, which makes students rely on private lessons for instruction. But even though there are students in the Rogers and Bentonville orchestra program, many of them who want to improve their skill might find it difficult to find available instructors.

“The need for violin teachers has grown tremendously, but the amount of teachers has not come into the area as fast,” said Jesse Collette, an orchestra teacher at Benton County School of the Arts in Rogers, who also teaches private lessons.

Jerry Lane, an orchestra teacher at Rogers Public Schools, said there are three full-time instructors, and one part-timer, at the schools. Three of them, not including Lane, teach private lessons when they can. But they simply don’t have enough time to teach all the students who want to take private lessons, he said. There are about 600 students in the Rogers orchestra program.

“A vast majority of students [in Rogers] do not study privately,” Lane said.

Rownack said about eight teachers give private lessons in strings in Fayetteville. She has 25 students in piano and violin and said she couldn’t take any more, adding that she knows many students who travel from Benton County to take lessons in Fayetteville.

Children in Washington County who want to learn a stringed instrument — whether it be a violin, viola, cello or bass — will have to find private lessons or take lessons from the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas in Fayetteville, a division of the University of Arkansas Department of Music.

The youth orchestra provides an opportunity for students to get involved in a group setting, Rownack said. Fayetteville and Springdale students learn the opposite way than many students who are in a school program learn.

“That’s how many [musicians] started — in school. If you liked it, then usually parents get you private lessons,” she said.

But Fayetteville hasn’t had an orchestra program since 1992, said Mary Haley, former orchestra teacher at Fayetteville Public Schools. And Springdale had a program unitl the late ’60s.

In 1992, Haley left the school to become the director at the Suzuki Music School. Once she left, the program went defunct because no one came in who wanted to put in the time and effort to keep it going, she said.

But even after 14 years, Haley said she believes if the right person came along, the program could get started again.

“It’s not an impossible situation,” Haley said. “It could be doable if there were a number of teachers in the Fayetteville area that banded together to get something going. I think it could be accomplished.”