The livelihood of the after-school music program at Lafayette Elementary School in Humboldt Park has been in jeopardy before. Initiated and still in large part funded by the Merit School of Music, the orchestra program that serves a committed group of some 85 students (and with a long waiting list) nearly went under in 2011 when the Merit School was forced by its own fundraising troubles to reduce its contribution. The community rallied to raise money and put the program on relatively sound footing. But the school, faced as it was with hard choices about how to allocate its resources to best serve its students, over 90% of whom live in poverty, could hardly pour additional money into the program.

Now, Lafayette is on the list of 54 Chicago schools slated for closure next fall. What stands to be shut down—together with all the school’s other functions, including unique special-ed programs that integrate autistic children into the general school population—is the “largest dedicated string orchestra program in the Chicago Public Schools system.” The orchestra isn’t just a serviceable after-school activity to keep young kids out of trouble and occupy their time, though that would be reason enough to keep it around. The orchestra has excelled in its 15 years of existence. The Merit School has brought in skilled and dedicated faculty, to help the kids not only develop serious chops at their instruments, but also nurture leadership skills and motivation that serve them far beyond the scope of the program itself. And despite its relatively limited resources (it’s an orchestra that makes do without woodwinds), the program has captured a lot attention over the years, performing and all over the city and at Orchestra Hall.

It has become a major calling card for Lafayette, which had been struggling for many years until this burst of activity and energy came on the scene. When the program was nearly shut down two years ago, the mother of one of its all-star students, who herself had attended Lafayette in the late 1980s and early 90s, said that the program was the reason she was still happy to send her children there. And the mother of an eighth-grade student kept him enrolled at Lafayette even after the family moved 16 miles away, to the South Side, knowing how important the program would be in helping him get into one of the city’s better public high schools. The accolades and quality of the music education at Lafayette have played a huge part in getting a number of their students into some of the best high schools in the city.

It’s a rare opportunity for students coming out of an economically depressed neighborhood, and one that virtually no other schools like it can offer. Arts education is hard enough to come by in public schools across the board—and is usually the first thing to get cut. Knowing how scarce opportunities of this caliber are, and how difficult it would be to re-launch at the school that will end up absorbing their student body assuming the closure goes forward, the community of Lafayette is fighting passionately to keep the program alive.

Arturs Weible, music teacher and the director of the program, said that everyone was immediately stricken by the school board’s announcement this month. But he said to himself: “OK, enough of the funereal atmosphere. Now [it’s time] to keep doing what I’ve been doing for 15 years, which is fight for this program.” Beyond rallying around the school and marching to their alderman’s office to demand help, the students and staff of Lafayette have done what they do best: they staged a concert on March 13 with their current players and some alumni, letting the music demonstrate their strength.  A staff member uploaded a video of that performance, and it didn’t take long for it to catch on. The performance speaks for itself. These are young students who are functioning as a cohesive unit, one that’s come to represent, to many, the heart of their whole neighborhood. The centrality of the program to the school community was seen two years ago when they rallied to save it, parents and students and teachers and volunteers gathering to hold big fundraisers and get the word out. And they’re marshalling all their capabilities to, hopefully, make sure their unit sticks together. For more of the orchestra and its members in action, check out this video put together by Humboldt Park organization Reason to Give, that illustrates the commitment of the people involved. For more from the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, check out our blog, Every Person Is a Philosopher.