First Battle - Aftermath

So, continuing the saga from my last post...

Willy the flute player ended up dropping out of my band, so that he could proceed with his membership in the youth orchestra.  The only problem is, said youth orchestra has a policy that all enrolled members must also participate in their school programs.

This is pretty standard - all the independent youth groups I know of have a similar policy, because they rely on the school programs to provide players.  It's usually in everyone's best interest if we support each other.  The director of  Willy's orchestra takes his commitment to the school programs pretty seriously.  He also happens to be a friend of mine.

Unbeknownst to Willy and his family, I called the director to see if we could cut a deal.  It turns out, there was no deal needed - the director insisted that Willy honor his commitment to me before that of the youth group.  I informed the director that it could mean that Willy could end up missing as many as nine rehearsals in the next three months.  "We'll manage" he said.

So... umm.... problem solved, right?

Only problem is, Willy never came back to band class - his name registered a drop notice on the roll sheet.  I mulled over what to do about it - it was my right (and some would probably say my duty) to inform the orchestra director that Willy was no longer eligible for his group.  At the same time, I didn't see the benefit of entering into a struggle with this family.  It was pretty clear that they didn't value my program very much.  Even if he came back, I imagine that we would come to a similar conflict in the future.

I called my friend and left a voice mail.  I told him what happened and left it up to him as to whether he wanted to continue letting this kid play for him... but  I figured that he should at least know how that went down.  The next day he called me back and told me that he wouldn't let Willy continue in his group.  To be honest, I'm feeling kind of embarrassed that my friend immediately jumped in with bigger cajones than I did.  But then again, he doesn't have to walk across his campus and bump into Willy, nor cross paths with his parents at school events.

In any case, I am deeply appreciative of my friend, the youth orchestra director, and at the same time  I'm saddened that my relationship with Willy ended thus.  He was actually a nice kid and a decent player.  Alas.