JACKSON TWP — Fifth graders from Haine and Evans City middle schools got a taste of what life will be like when they move up to the secondary school campus through the district’s first “Band Collaboration Day.”

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About 130 band students from the two schools traveled to the intermediate high school Thursday to work with secondary school band teachers, artists-in-residence and high school wind ensemble students.“This idea is being able to energize and excite young students to stay in band,” said Varden Armstrong, band teacher at the intermediate high school.Students at Seneca Valley begin playing instruments in fourth grade. By the end of their fifth grade year, many students make a decision to stick with band or drop it, he said.It’s understandable, Armstrong said, as fifth grade is a time where course work, activities and sports begin ramping up to secondary school levels. Band is just another thing from which they have to choose, Armstrong said.But if they can introduce the students to the instructors and opportunities they’ll have at the middle and high schools, maybe they will choose to stick with it, he said.