Patty Battin
Aug 12, 2025
Mr. Dunlop
This is my 28th year at Century. I love what I do and I'm excited to do it. I want to introduce a couple of people to you and then I'll introduce Zach, who's the coach, who's the real reason we called this meeting.
We have a few board members here tonight and I’d like to introduce them.
This is Christina Saribay, she is the band booster president. So all of the things that we do, she's involved with in some way.
This is Jason Keezel. He is one of our treasurers, and if you have any questions, he would be the person to contact.
This is Patty. Patty is our secretary, so all emails that you get from band should come through Patty. And I will use that as our official communication. And so everything important that you have to know will go through Patty. So, like, if we change the practice, we will send that through Patty. So if you haven't gotten an email from Cut Time then make sure you talk to Patty before you leave and let's make sure we have your information.
If you haven't seen the band app, you're welcome to join, and they use that. And it's a great way to say, like, for example, if you look at it right now in the last hour, it's like, we're starting in the cafeteria, use the side door, hey, everybody, make sure you bring lots of water today because it's super hot and we are going outside, stuff like that, when they talk to each other.
It looks like this in the app store of your phone. It is actually called “The Band App”.
Saying Happy Birthday and all that kind of stuff we like to use the band app for.
My job is to be the director. So I'm kind of in charge of everything, so you're always welcome to contact me if you have a question.
This is Zach and Zach is in charge of the color guard.
So all color guard things can go through me and I'll get it to Zach or you can go straight to Zach. So I'd like to introduce Zach to you. I wanna say this, in my 29 years at Century, I've had eight or nine color guard coaches and I will tell you two things. I think Zach is the best coach I've ever had. Second, I would say that I've not had a team in the summer work as hard as your team has. He hasn't called one of those practices. Most of them have been done by the students, getting together, spinning together, and then our staff making sure that they're involved when they can be. I've been very impressed. I guess I'll say three things, but a third thing is that I want to let you know that one of the things that I think has been great about Zach is he is well connected in the guard world and has brought in some really good people to work with him.
Zach Dye
Thank you. Hi. I know most of you. I mostly did want to use this opportunity to meet face to face with some of the new parents and guardians. I feel like I am an over communicator in many ways. I am extremely accessible to you via the band app, email and text or phone call. I welcome any and all questions. I wanted to talk about the staff a little bit, talk about the handbook.
A little bit about me, I’m from Indiana, originally, which is Midwest Indiana specific. I would say six of the top ten high school colorguards in the country are all within 45 minutes of each other in Indianapolis. I taught one of those for seven years. I've done some stuff with independent groups from colleges in the winter season. I've gone forward teaching and marching experience in Japan performing with the activity.
What I've noticed when I moved out here was the culture within the activity is very different than what I'm used to. I've been with Century, I think this is year four. Last year was the first time that I kind of took on the director position. I have the most fun when I am able to bond with my team about being really good at our craft. I have pretty extremely high expectations from your students and they are not unreasonable, I promise you.
With that said, I'm happy to meet everyone where they're at too. But no one, unless it's an attitude issue or it's a grades issue where the school says that you can't get involved or it's an attendance issue where you simply just can't make it to our practices, I will never cut anyone from this program. I hire the right people to accommodate different learning styles and different approaches to make sure that they are successful as long as they want to be successful.
That said, if there are the attitude issues, if there are attendance issues, if the grades are a problem, if you're not vibing with the culture, then I can't help you any further.
Attendance was one of the things I wanted to mention. I personally would like to ask you to let me know if you will be absent. You can let anyone else on staff know Mr. Dunlop, Morgan, Sam, Dylan, whomever so long as I am notified also.
I would refer you or your student to tell me via the Band app, or if you guys want to call me or send me a text, then I'll jot it down. I get less understanding if the communication's not there. You can’t ever over communicate. I'm welcome to all of that stuff.
I can say competently, there's going to be no less than two adults with the students at all times, and that's pretty rare because the majority of the time is going to be three plus.
We have 6 staff, Morgan, Dylan, Sam, Ayson, McKenna, sometimes Olivia, sometimes Jesse and myself. The core crew is Dylan, Morgan, Sam and me.
I want to make sure that everyone's accounted for at all times. I'm strict with scheduling, the staff has an idea of minute by minute how we're going to spend the day, so that they know how to prep their time.
Color Guard is going to happen from basically right now through November 1st, Which is our championships.Winter Guard is just doing Color Guard during November through March, inside.
The parade season is attached to the Fall season because it's all a marching band. We try not to say parade season like it's a separate thing.
After marching band ends, there is probably a two weeks gap and then an audition for winter so that I can kind of gauge based off of skill sets who belongs in which group, show up to that, and then that's letting me know that your student wants to be involved, and so they're on my roster until I'm told otherwise.
My last couple points, I use the band app pretty regularly, so hopefully you're all on it. There's a couple pages that I would like you to be on. It would be the fall band page, the fall color guard page, just us specifically, and then their separate parent guardian page as well.
My last point, kind of more approach to the season. There's 23 in the color guard signed up. All 23 will perform. Not all 23 will perform all of the show. So I want to state that it's not in any capacity a kind of punishment. It's more so based off of skill. If I can sense that the student is being overwhelmed by something, I'm going to let them focus on some of the stuff that we already have at hand and not burden them further by having to load on to that more. This is an opportunity for you to really focus on being great at this one part of the show. So before your kid can try it to you about oh Zach's so mean he took me out of the show. I'm such a bully and all these buzzwords. I want you to know that everything is like very intentional and planned and it's for your student's benefit and for the program's benefit as a whole. There's no ill will ever towards anything. I just want everyone to be successful.
General Information
There's four money pieces. One is you pay, the $400 fair share you pay. Two is the parent, we ask the parents to volunteer 16 hours or pay. They can either volunteer for 16 hours, or they can pay $200. Three is the students can either pay, or the kids can come to 10 fundraisers. A fundraiser might be the can drive, that would be one. A fundraiser might be work concessions at the stadium. There are many. You can pick which one, work with your family schedule If they get 10 points, at the end of the year we do a camp, like to get prepared for the parade, and it's free.
The fourth level of paying, the individual fundraisers where the students get a cut for their account. Some examples, a street sale, pie sales, or works at a HOPS game.
We have various years that are trip years. Last year, the guard went to San Diego for a big competition. Those trips cost extra money. Those aren't included.
Everything is included when we go to Grants Pass, which is on the schedule, we stay overnight. That trip is covered in the fair share. The food and all the activities. All of the competitions, all that stuff is covered. What is not covered is when we take a big trip. That's an optional trip. For example, this year is Orlando. The whole band's going to Orlando. Everybody who signed up and is participating.
In the winter, that's a different fee. It's less than the fall, that is a different season.
We always prefer that they come to the fundraisers than you just pay a check.
With the fundraising, we do sign-up geniuses for most everything that we do because we like to know how many people are coming, but it's not a qualifier.
Like for the can drive, we had eight parents involved and we had 60 kids. And we like to have them sign up ahead of time so we know what to plan for. If you're involved at all, you have zero trouble getting your hours.
Hillsboro School District won't let you work with students until you are cleared by the district. The background check isn't always quick, it depends on the time of the year particularly. Like at the start of the year, they get a lot, and so it takes a little bit more time. Any time you're working with students directly, you have to be cleared.
The only get-together you can’t pay to go to is the all night party in December. And I think that they're pretty reasonable if it's a new student that hasn't had all summer to get points they'll look at that and sometimes they'll get in for less than the five points.
This is Kristin Keezel. And Kristin has set up a program where we have what we call band buddies, you will be set up with an experienced parent. And then you have your own person. So all these folks have been around. We have set it up so that somebody who knows what's going on will be there. They can explain fundraising, they can help you understand the handbook and different phrases that are used. So if you are new ask for a band parent buddy.