Progressions is an El Sistema-based and culturally responsive music and youth development program that is all about changing lives by helping low-income, at-promise youth in our community identify, cultivate and celebrate their gifts through music education and performance.

An evidence-based program, Progressions uses music to connect with students, challenge them with a rigorous music education, help them build a pro-social community and stays with them through eighth grade. The program’s mission is to narrow the opportunity gap for at-promise students, expand equitable access to the arts for all, and advocating for music education as a necessary core subject for a well-rounded and inclusive 21st-century education.

In the first six months of the 2019-20 school year, we reached 1,000 students in six Title 1 school sites in the Franklin-McKinley School District with instrument training, ensembles, homework support and mentoring.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic closed schools and put the program on hiatus, we’ve continued to work with our students via home learning packets, videos and online events. We hope to renew instrument training and ensembles in 2020-21. 

– Magdelena Moore, Jeanne R. Meadows Elementary Principal