MONROE, CT — Social distancing may have kept Monroe Elementary School students and staff apart for the last three months of the school year, but music teacher, Alyson O’Grady, started a virtual chorus to bring the fifth-grade class together one more time.
“I was sad that we would end the year and they would move to sixth grade without coming together through music one last time,” she recalled. “Music is a big part of the culture of Monroe El, with students performing in large groups several times during the school year.”
O’Grady worked with parents to collect 65 videos and photos of students singing the “Monroe Elementary School Song.” Every fifth-grader is represented in the video.
“Students followed very specific guidelines, listened, sang with an accompaniment track and recorded themselves singing,” O’Grady said. “The students who were too shy sent photos, so they could still be included.”
With the help of a video editor, O’Grady lined up and layered the audio tracks, so it sounded like they were singing together as a chorus.
“This video was shown to fifth grade parents and students on our last day of school,” she said of Wednesday, June 17.
To watch the video, click on this link.
