Carson Music Teacher Being Welcomed Back to His School for an Encore

CARSON —  Call it Mr. Hammerstedt’s Opus.

Thirty years ago, trumpet player Harry Hammerstedt left a steady career as a musician for a classroom in Carson. And for all those years, the Carnegie Middle School instructor never regretted his decision.

Then, last week, the music stopped in Hammerstedt’s classroom when Carnegie officials, needing to trim staff, cut the music program he created.

But in a story line that could have been borrowed from the current film “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” the Los Angeles Unified School District recognized Hammerstedt’s value. And last week, it reinstated the program. Just like in Hollywood, Hammerstedt’s story ends on a high note.

“This is amazing,” Hammerstedt said after the decision. “I was hopeful that they might change their minds but I didn’t expect this to happen so fast.”

The school district’s decision followed an outpouring of support for Hammerstedt, 54, of Cypress, by current and former students as well as their parents.

At a rally, the group gathered outside the campus to show support for the affable, smartly dressed jazz musician and teacher. Chanting “No music, no school,” they protested the district’s plans with a march to Carson City Hall. (Actor Richard Dreyfuss, who stars in “Mr. Holland’s Opus” was invited to the rally but was reportedly in Europe promoting the film.)

By the time the rally ended, district officials already had decided to save the program.

“Nobody wanted to eliminate the music program but there was an enrollment situation that had to be dealt with,” said L.A. Unified spokesman Brad Sales. “Once the superintendent saw the instructional needs of the school, it was decided to keep [Hammerstedt] and music at the school.”

Hammerstedt was placed in a new assignment at Jordan High School in Watts, but the tenured teacher refused to report to the school because he would have had to bump a well-liked instructor there out of a slot.

He preferred, he said, to fight for his own job.

Carnegie administrators originally said they were forced to cut two teaching positions to meet the district’s guidelines on keeping the number of teachers at a certain proportion to the number of registered students, said Principal Earline Edwards. With enrollment down this past year, officials had decided to meet the district’s student-teacher ratios by eliminating two jobs; one was Hammerstedt’s.

But district officials decided to allow the school one extra teacher and keep Hammerstedt at Carnegie. Students were informed over the school’s public address system that their music teacher would be back. “He is a good teacher, I didn’t want to cut back the teaching staff,” Edwards said. “We have a good program here and I’m glad we will be able to continue.”

When Hammerstedt returns later this week, music students will be removed from the elective classes where they were transferred so they can continue their music.

“We were all just sitting around when they told us we had to drop music,” seventh-grader Lavana Lucero said. “I was put in general art and I hate it.”

For Lucero, second-period music class was something to get excited about. Hammerstedt was preparing band members for a spring concert and encouraged them all to play in the high school band, which relies on Carnegie for 80% of its members.

Hammerstedt’s opus began at the age of 10 when he tagged along with his parents to visit the Lighthouse, the landmark jazz club in Hermosa Beach. Peering through its smoky windows, or sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk outside the club, Hammerstedt would dream about a career as a musician.

Saving up money for his own trumpet and lessons, Hammerstedt was playing professional gigs in Los Angeles by the time he was 16. But at 19, when marriage and then kids came along, he traded the excitement of playing for the security of a conductor’s baton, quitting the band and getting his teaching credentials.

“I loved playing in a jazz band but at a certain point, I felt I had to make a decision,” Hammerstedt said. “And as a young married man, I did what I had to do.”

Though he still plays professionally on occasion, Hammerstedt prefers to teach youths to love music. He started the Carson Youth Orchestra, now defunct, and has taken the school band to festivals throughout the state. Only two months ago, the award-winning bandleader was appointed to a mentor teacher program at the school to work with colleagues.

Over the years, he has not only taught hundreds of students but two generations in the same families. And last week, many students and their parents--all former pupils of Hammerstedt--were there for him, just as he had been there for them.

Back in 1967, remembered Sara Sapien of Carson, she learned the clarinet in Hammerstedt’s beginning band class. And years later, she was furious when her eighth-grade son Gabriel Torrez said he had to quit the trombone and take drafting because the music program had been canceled.

“I look back on my experience in Harry’s class with a lot of fondness,” Sapien said. “I enjoyed the class tremendously and when I brought my son into the class, I was happy to see that he still disciplined the kids and cared.”