Folsom Cordova district school first-ever drum line program ensnares students’ interest

Mills Middle School, a school in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, featured its first drum line this semester.

Drum line is a course students can take, and students meet with music teacher Jimmie Adams five days a week to practice. The experience is a team-building one for some students.

“I do enjoy how we can all connect through the drums,” said Scarlett Zendejas, an eighth-grader enrolled in the class. “We have a really good relationship with each other. It’s really like we’re a big family.”

Zendejas plays the tenor drum, usually a set of four to six drums mounted over the drummer’s shoulders when marching. Zendejas was named captain of the tenors last week, a well-recognized position within drum line.

“I really like it and actually never thought that I would be good at it,” she said. “I really feel free or in my own zone when I’m playing because I have learned to cancel everybody out so I can focus on myself.”

As Zendejas nears her freshman year, she would like to continue playing music at Cordova High School. Adams said this is exactly what the Mills Middle School program was geared toward: a stepping stone to higher music education.

Kevin Sims is a music teacher at Cordova High whose marching band class performs the halftime show for the football team. Adams said he wants his drum line class to be a feeder program, so that students’ momentum continues.

“I hope they take away this musical experience, man,” Adams said. “I want them to get involved with music and stay involved with music.”

Adams hopes that his students also take away a certain level of discipline from his class. He tasked student Zayne Starks with raising his hand and alerting Adams when there are two minutes left in class. It is at this point that Adams instructs all students to pick up their chairs and move them to the corner of the classroom.

“I like the room to be cleaned up, so I’m ready to go for the next day,” he said. “This is not the playground. My first two weeks I spent on ‘OK, you don’t take your music that I give you and sit it at the bottom of your Jurassic Park backpack,’ because then you try to reach to get it and it’s all crumpled up and you want a new piece. No, we take care of our music.”

The drum line students’ work has paid off. Mills, a Title I school, submitted and was awarded a grant from Rancho Cordova’s community enhancement and investment fund for music students to receive new equipment, according to district spokeswoman Angela Griffin Ankhelyi.

Dana Carrigan, Mills‘ principal, chalks up the success of the program entirely to Adams.

“I think it’s simply a matter of having a talented musical director that knows how to teach a program like that,” Carrigan said.

Some students said drum line helps them express themselves.

“We all talk, laugh and share our opportunity to be us,” said Jazelle Reed Johnson, a sixth-grader in the program.

This story was originally published December 15, 2022 at 12:03 PM.