School Masses

ghmus7

Hello, we have two Catholic schools that celebrate their masses at our church. Our elementary school has a very fine choir program that is co directed by our great school Choral director and myself. Although the school doesn't get the importance of this, we make it work.
Although the director is not Catholic, she has been very easy to work with.

As for our other academy, mid. School and H.S., it's been nothing but conflict. They have a new choir director every year and they are never Catholic. This person is in charge of selecting and planning the music for their school masses. Since, she knows nothing about Catholic theology, music or liturgy, I have insisted that I approve the music. However, the last email I recieved, by the the administrator s said " this is not even your role". I have not heard from the pastor.

Many of you do school masses...how do you handle them? Do you insist on approving all music? If any of you have worked with non catholic school choral directors, I would appreciate advice.

Bri

I have worked on the other side -- as a Catholic school teacher and principal.

In the schools I worked in, the music teacher reported to the principal, and the principal reported to the pastor (for matters of faith) and to the diocesan school office (for other matters).

The parish music director collaborated with the school for Holy Days of Obligation, but on other days, the school selected the music without consulting with the parish music director.

The pastor did provide oversight and guidance. There was certain music he would not allow, which he informed us of ahead of time or in response to questionable choices. He didn't collect the music list weekly though.

TCJ

When I worked as a school music teacher I was also the parish music director. All music choices for school Mass were my selection and the principal and other teachers had no say (fortunately!). I reported to the pastor in this regard who was generally hands off.

irishtenor

It's not the administrator's role to define yours.

I would suggest it's not appropriate for a non-Catholic school choir director to have selecting liturgical music within their purview.

davido

I was fortunate to come into a position with a school music teacher who was not Catholic and had no part in the school Mass. I have responsibility for the music for school Masses and report to the pastor. This has not changed with subsequent music teachers. I also spend some time each week working with the children who cantor or form the Mass choir.

A church music specialist should be picking the music for school masses. There is unlikely to be someone like this on staff at a parochial school, besides the church music director.

rvisser

I have been in a similar situation, although it was with a Catholic music teacher who did not have much knowledge of liturgical music. Here are some things that worked for me. Your mileage may vary.
- Emphasize the need for continuity between parish and school. For me, this meant having a few hymns (or even a setting of the Alleluia) that I used on Sundays that I wanted used for school Mass. Students should also be attending Sunday Masses, so there should be some understanding that music at school Masses can't be completely different from what happens on Sundays.
- Be proactive in providing resources to the school music teacher. If she doesn't have good resources, she will resort to using her own. For me, this meant preparing an excel spreadsheet template for planning music for Masses. This could be especially helpful for a non-Catholic music teacher, who may not know what is needed. This alone could save you a lot of headaches. I even pre-filled the template with a few suggestions, which the school music teacher could change (or not!)
- Ask the choral teacher what repertoire they are planning to teach in the classroom this year. Then suggest where this music might fit liturgically. Hopefully some of it will fit. I did this a lot with Christmas program music. Our K-8 teacher prepared excellent Christmas programs every year, and I was able to take the liturgically appropriate music from them and use them for Christmas Masses, with students singing. We were able to support each other because she rehearsed the music in the classroom, and I rehearsed the music with my after school youth choir. Everyone benefited, and both of us had more efficient rehearsals as a result.
- After several years of stress in planning school Mass music, we settled on making a school Mass worship aid, which we had professionally printed and spiral-bound. It reduced the amount of music we were choosing from, and allowed both of us to put things in the worship aid which we thought were important for the education of the students. It was definitely a compromise, but it did put music planning on a more level playing field. It also allowed me to say no to certain things (new praise and worship music, mostly) because they simply weren't in the worship aid.
- Who plays for the school Masses? This definitely affected our music selection. For many years, I was the accompanist for school Masses, while the K-8 teacher prepared the students. Since I am an organist, I was able to incorporate organ at school Mass, which was pretty new for our parish (I played the organ every Sunday). However, my job duties changed because I was needed in other areas, and eventually my school Mass duties were delegated to a co-worker who only plays piano.
- Develop musical camaraderie with the high school director. I now work at a parish/school where I am the only music teacher K-12, in addition to being the parish music director. This has some pretty awesome benefits (school Masses are a dream), but I do not have other professional musicians to bounce ideas off of. Presumably the school music teacher is a good musician in her own right, even if she is not a good liturgical musician.

I wish you the best this upcoming school year!

Magdalene

When I first came to this parish, I intentionally asked that my title be Director of Music, not Music Director. Once you set foot in the church, you're in my jurisdiction in regards to music. Same applies for our school Masses. I either pick it, or they run it by me. Funerals and weddings, even if I'm not available for music, approved by me. If they argue it's not your role, it is absolutely your role and responsibility to decide what is appropriate for music in the church space. I also have a supportive pastor. That's how we handle it, but I would agree you need your pastor's support.

MatthewRoth

^100% this.

wspinnen

My second DOM job required me to accompany a weekly school Mass. I was lucky in that selecting music was entirely my jurisdiction, but the situation I walked into was a dumpster fire. From day one, the music teacher (who was Mormon) made my life miserable and neither my pastor or the principal saw things my way.

Long story short, I made a plan that after Holy Week/Easter I would have a frank discussion with both the pastor and principal about how I felt completely unsupported by them as far as what I wanted to do for the school kids and their musical-liturgical formation. What stopped me was that, just before Palm Sunday, the decision was made to close the school at the end of the semester (severe under-enrollment, in case you're curious).

My experience teaches me that the music director of the parish has the right over parish school Masses. But it doesn't mean anything when you have no support from the pastor and principal for your role in the context of the school, and means even less than that when the music teacher refuses to work fairly with you and meet you halfway.

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