Skylar Jamison, 9, said she felt embarrassed and nervous at first to be performing in front of so many people at the Longwood Elementary School holiday show, as it was her first year in choir and her first time performing.
But by the time the show ended at the Glenwood school, she said she felt happy. She also said her friends, who convinced her to join choir, were not nervous for the performance but were “just having fun.”
Jamison is one of more than a dozen students who showed up for choir practice at 7 a.m., long before the school bell rang. Her mom, Edrinna Jamison, said those early practices allowed her to drop off Skylar early at school before work, while also giving Skylar an outlet to explore her own personality.
Those early morning singers were joined by more than 80 other students, from kindergarten to fourth grade, who danced and sang in Longwood’s highest attended annual holiday show Dec. 17.
Principal Carnisha Mayze credited this year’s high attendance to the school’s ability to include more students in the performance by offering more accommodating practice times.
She said the morning practice allowed students to still participate in after-school activities and also try out choir for the first time.
Mayze also said it’s important for young students to explore music because the practices teach students to focus and have discipline. Music activities also give students another way to make friends, and she said she hopes music could lead to scholarships or other opportunities down the road.
Edrinna Jamison said choir practice also brought out a lot of character, pizazz, confidence and spunk in Skylar.
“I’m just trying to give her more personality and see what she likes,” Jamison said. “She’s coming into her own individuality.”
Mayze said the event’s high attendance meant a lot because it emphasized her partnership with the families.
“I believe in that old saying, ‘it takes a village,’ and when children see that we have a good relationship with their families, they want to be here,” Mayze said. “You can’t teach a child if you have not reached them.”
Mayze opened up the school gym, library and cafeteria at the holiday event for a rotation of activities for families, such as photos with Santa, frame and ornament crafts, hot cocoa, winter snacks and raffle prizes.
The students could also write texts to an elf and receive responses in real time. Parents had the opportunity to win gift cards in a raffle.
“I always try to have some type of raffle for parents at events, I mean, that’s the least I can do, and I appreciate them bringing their kids here, especially with all the demands they have,” Mayze said.
Mayze said these activities gave the parents more time to gather at the school, especially when a lot of families can not come during the day due to work demands.
She said taking time to make these memories with the students builds the school’s relationships with the families, which she said improves student attendance, comradery and learning because it builds trust.
Mayze said that when students know staff are on a first-name basis with their parents, it makes them more comfortable being in school.
“The parents support me, and they know that I’m going to treat their children like my own, and that just makes me feel like I’m doing something right,” Mayze said.
Mayze said the staff is already thinking about how they can do something new with the event next year.
awright@chicagotribune.com