EL TORO : High School Band Gets New Director

Just two weeks after a whirlwind tour of Europe, including performances at a music festival in Geneva, the El Toro High Marching Band was already back at work this week, sweating in the August heat in their heavy navy blue uniforms.

The summer’s accomplishment puts them among the top high school bands in the nation. It was the only high school band to perform at the American Bowl in London, England’s yearly exhibition of professional U.S. football. And they so impressed the crowd in Geneva that spectators were running alongside the band, cheering, during parades, band members said.

But the hallmark trip had a bittersweet taste for the 104-member unit. It marked the last time that band members would work with director Pat Rainer, who had led the band for the past 10 years. Rainer resigned in July after district officials notified her that she would be transferred out of El Toro High to teach elementary school. She accompanied the band on the August trip because it had been arranged almost a year earlier.

The announcement of Rainer’s transfer last April sparked an outcry from parents, who filed a formal complaint against the school’s principal and lobbied the school board about the action.

Some parents, still upset, plan to appear at the school board’s Sept. 11 meeting to demand comment from the school board. The matter, conducted during closed session because it was a personnel item, was never publicly discussed.

“We don’t feel this is right. We just want an answer,” said Deni Richardson, a parent of a band member.

Although it is district policy not to include booster groups on policy decisions, Richardson said she thought boosters need to have more say in administrative decisions.

Principal Don Martin said he requested Rainer’s transfer partly because of “personality conflicts” with the football staff. In one instance, the band missed a CIF playoff game to appear at a competition in Santa Barbara. The band’s appearance at the competition was sanctioned by Martin, but it later caused discord. The campus newspaper editorialized against the band and band members allegedly were harassed on campus. In response to that, parents angrily called the administration.

“I expected a backlash (after requesting the transfer), but I thought it was in the best interest of the band and the entire school,” Martin said. “When you’re successful, the important thing to do is work together, rather than work separately.”

And although parents are still irked over what happened to Rainer, most are ready to accept her replacement, 25-year-old Tom Verrier, a former band leader at Pioneer High School in Whittier.

“I feel very positive about Verrier, despite everything that happened. He’s got some great ideas,” Richardson said.

As they practiced Friday, band members seemed eager to begin a new season as they listened to their new director.

“He’s real enthusiastic, but he’s different,” drum major Mike Esperanza said. “You just have to get used to it.”

“I think we’re going to have an even better year,” junior Danny Methe said. “It just depends on how people work together.”

On the second day of practice, the teacher Friday already had passed his first obstacle: sharing the school’s two practice fields with the football team.

“We coordinated what times we would use it, what times they would use it. . . . It didn’t seem to be a problem,” he said. “We’re (eager) to support the football team.”