News Detail

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (MARCH 23, 2022) — Williamsport Area School District teacher Jennifer Wright has been selected to receive the Penn State School of Music 2021-2022 Outstanding Music Education Alumni Award.

According to the music school, the award recognizes “outstanding Penn State alumni for distinguished service to K-12 music programs.”

Wright, a choral and general music education teacher at Lycoming Valley Intermediate School (LVIS), will be recognized at this year’s Penn State School of Music Awards Ceremony in late April. She’s also been invited to visit with and engage students in the school’s undergraduate music education program on campus this fall.

Wright has been a music teacher at WASD for 13 years, having taught at Curtin Middle School for four years and at LVIS for the last nine years.

She earned her undergraduate degree in music education from PSU and also holds a master’s degree in music education from the University of the Arts. She plans to begin working toward her degree in music therapy from Slippery Rock University this fall.

Wright has led and continues to lead several school community programs. She’s involved with leading the LVIS Theatre Club. Before the pandemic hit, she ran two extra-curricular music ensembles, Millionaire Mallets, for both fifth- and sixth-grade students. Those groups performed with Williamsport Area High School’s Millionaire Singers at the state Department of Education’s annual holiday party. They also traveled to perform at PSU.

In the community, she is involved in her church’s children’s ministry, teaches private piano lessons and runs a summer music camp at St. John School of the Arts. She’s president of the Twin Tiers Orff Schulwerk Association, a local chapter for professional development for general music teachers. She’s presented during Lycoming County’s Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) and at PSU’s “Orfftoberfest” professional development days.

She also consistently hosts student teachers from PSU and Susquehanna University.

Wright said that when it comes to teaching music, she loves to see the sense of pride and accomplishment when students create something amazing.

“Musical training has so many benefits to students’ brain development, emotional development, social development and career readiness,” she said. “In my classroom, I like to teach ‘musical building blocks’ based on different rhythm and tonal patterns. These patterns build musical literacy and provide a basis for students to compose their own meaningful music. In pairs or small groups, students manipulate patterns and build their own music masterpieces. These activities allow students to learn the important career skills, such as creativity, planning, collaboration, self-reflection, confidence and problem solving. Socially, when music is performed together, we learn to listen to one another, help one another, include everyone, and consider every part as valuable in its own way.”

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