Students pile into the orchestra room every Friday. All of them show excitement to see their friends with smiles and conversation. Then, they ready instruments to learn what their director has for the day. Slowly, the sound of music overtakes the chatter.

This is United Sound.

United Sound is a program that has changed many young students’ lives. The program teaches special–education students how to play instruments. For many of these students, they rely on music to learn, and they find United Sound as a way of doing so. These students meet with other students who have been in orchestra for a while, and they end up forming a bond and learn from them.

Functional Academics teacher Jessica Guy said she sees the impact of the program, and how much it means to her students. 

“I think it’s very important to a lot of our students to learn through music. It’s very motivating for them,” Guy said. “I feel like they look forward to going to play the instruments and being exposed to the music, but also just spending that time with their peers.”

Guy said she has been planning and communicating with her students’ parents. Head Orchestra Director Monika Bartley said she oversees United Sound from orchestra’s point of view. When Bartley came to Prosper High School, United Sound was already established and functioning, but she has helped expand the program.

“You know, as much as I love the music and the joy that our students get from it, I love seeing the relationships that are built between the special education students and our students and how it goes beyond the orchestra room,” Bartley said. “We even had orchestra students going to graduation parties for their partners in United Sound and birthday parties and all of that.”

Assistant Director Cassie Cepeda, one of the program’s teachers, said the United Sound ensemble even performed in front of the school board last year. Cepeda has navigated her students through the program, giving them direction and order.

“It was awesome to see all the students just rise to the occasion and learn a song in two rehearsals,” Cepeda said. “We had to pull off one of the songs in two rehearsals. They showed us that we don’t need to hold them back, and it really taught us and our mentor students that there’s really no limit.”

Senior Sam Meade gave his take on the program as well, describing his experience with United Sound.

“I feel like it’s taught me a good deal of patience because I just sometimes struggle having to slow down a little bit because I like moving at a fast pace,” Meade said. “But working with them, some of them move a little bit quicker, and then some of them don’t, so you kind of just have to have a level of patience, knowing that it’ll take time, and then you’ll feel a lot more and then it feels really beneficial once it starts coming along nice.”

Meade said he saw the impact of the his United Sound student at the December concert. He was worried his student would get distracted or freeze up, but, as the lights grew bright, the opposite came true.

“I was just really proud of him,” Meade said.  “He managed to keep really good focus throughout the entire performance, which was big for him.”