A ballad of sadness: Saying goodbye hits all the low notes

Last year, the DGS fine arts program lost choral director Belford Hernandez. Hernandez worked alongside choral director Joy Belt-Roselieb and choral director Ricardo Pedroza. Together they ran the DGS fine arts program by teaching classes, picking out music and keeping everything organized.

At the end of last school year, the school laid off Hernandez due to low numbers. Losing one of the directors sent a wave of sadness over choir students. People believe that his leaving took a toll on the choir program and students, mainly his coworkers.

“We made magic and we would just feed off of each other so incredibly well. You can’t have a good music program without a team of adults who know how to work together musically…so we had a dream team that no one could possibly understand and the loss of him from this building,” Belt-Roselieb said.

Losing a helping hand alters the nature of the classroom. During Covid-19, the numbers of kids in choir dropped greatly. Since then, Belt-Roselieb, Hernandez and Pedroza have been working hard to rebuild that sense of choir community.

“It’s not a short game and if you want to support programs you have to have excellent teachers in place and be patient and let it grow. We just cut off the tree before the branches began to grow,” Belt-Roselieb said.

Overall, the laying off of Hernandez has brought sadness among the choir students and teachers and continue to feel the absence of him during this year.

“District 99 prides itself in seeking excellent, quality teachers. Hernandez was the epitome of quality, excellence, musicianship, a good human and awesome for kids. At a time in our social world where we need great people in our schools, the sad part is we let one of the best teachers get away,” Belt-Roselieb said.