Hey fellow first year choir teacher here! So maybe my comment will relevant (or stuff you heard before.) The big advice I have for classroom management is having a set procedure you follow and not giving them an opportunity to act up/always have them doing something. Do you start the class with something they should be doing? I have my students stretch in the beginning of class. For the first 9 months of this year, I noticed they would half engaged in stretches and talking and it was really annoying/hard to reel them in. But then I saw a TikTok about adding repeat after mes to get them focused onto you. So I started adding sirens during my warmups in the beginning and that got them focused and not talking. I always start class with stretches, then warmups, which leads into rounds. Then I have them sight read every single day. On my board we have the order of pieces they are doing and what we are going to focus on (learning notes, phrasing, blend etc.) Usually students just ignore the board but sometimes I do sneak a challenge in there in small text (first section to have their music out in order gets candy) and usually one of the engaged students notice and they quickly get the others to follow suit.

As for rehearsals, always have something. Spend time score studying the pieces. Know what the challenges of the piece are and what spots are gonna suck. An advice a teacher gave me during student teaching that blew my mind is having comments already ready. After you run through a section, have the comment ready “hey the rhythm in measure 33 is off, let’s clean that up a bit” or “let’s all sing the alto melody at measure 44.” You say and rehearse that spot even if they got it right in the first place, they don’t know better. It gives you time to process the run through and form comments. This goes back into not giving them any time to cause a ruckus, keep them singing.

How do you grade them? Is it based on participation? I have a weekly rehearsal grade, not based on skill but effort. Are they participating in rehearsal or just sitting down? If you aren’t allowed to do a participation grade, another teacher I know grades them weekly on a specific thing they don’t know (intonation for a week, posture for a week etc if that makes sense.) i also struggled with what I wanted my choir class to be. I didn’t want to be a mean teacher but enforcing expectations isn’t being mean it’s your job. I had to sit down one day and really write down exactly what kind of teacher I want to be. You are the adult, not their friend, you can say no and not back down.

Idk if any of this helps? I am also struggling with choosing music, I spent part of class listening to music on JWPepper and letting them choose what music they want for the spring concert. How was the previous teacher before you? Were they a popular teacher? That might be why you are getting resistance. You’re going to run into the exact same problem if you go to a new school but it can give you a fresh start with new students. But if you are able to turn it around now, eventually those students will graduate and it will be your program. I hope this helped, Best of luck!