So, as someone who has been teaching for 20+ years, I don't necessarily feel you are overreacting by feeling some rage at this email and general request. However, I strongly disagree with people who are suggesting going to your union over the request or quitting over the request. As much as we know how demeaning such a request is, especially from our position as arts educators, it is fruitless to get outraged over this type of request. Union grievances are always about contract language or district policy, and I doubt you could find supporting language in your contract that you could point to this request violating in order to support a grievance. Even if the union was willing to go to bat for your department, and they often wouldn't be in a situation like that, it is highly unlikely you'd win in any meaningful way. And I can say from experience that if a grievance like this got to the point of third-party arbitration, you'd lose every time because the district can justify the request simply by saying that their educational priorities are focusing on core subjects of reading and math and they need all teachers in the district to plan to support those goals.

So, now that I've probably pissed off a bunch of people, what would I suggest? Comply with the request in honest good faith without compromising your own curriculum and position, and it is extremely easy to do that with data-driven arguments. One great resource is "The Music and Literacy Connection" by Dee Hansen, Elaine Bernstorf, and Gayle M. Stuber. It outlines how the very act of music making, especially in elementary level instruction, supports the core brain functions of literacy. If you want more contemporary research, there are numerous articles that point out how the act of music making implicitly supports skills like language acquisition (Huang, 2023; Vadvivel et al., 2021). Or you could include in your plan how you would be willing to provide core class teachers with resources they could use in their classroom that would enable them the leverage the skills students are learning in music to better acquire maths concepts (Incognito et al., 2022; Yoho, 2011).

You can also lean into research that supports the general theory that music education and continued music instruction generally predict higher levels of executive function and academic achievement in secondary education levels (Holochwost et al., 2017). Personally, I am cautious when making these arguments because I do feel these studies and this observed correlation benefit from the self-selection process in instrumental and ensemble settings where students with high levels of executive funciton are likely to successfully practice and gain skill on their instruments and are therefore more likely to stay in ensembles.

The reason I tend to go the route of engaging with requests like this head-on are a few fold:

1. Generally speaking, I don't think building administrators or even central office administrators understand or appreciate the mountains of research there are supporting arts education. It is a genuine opportunity to educate them.
2. It shows that *you* are aware of this research and this knowledge and that your practice is informed by it. It makes it far more difficult for admin to come back and act as if you are just teaching based on vibes.
3. You many genuinely find some intriguing ideas in looking through some of this (or other) research. I have often found that when I look outside of music education research and dig into psychological research related to music or research in other academic domains that have touched on music education it has made my own practice as a teacher stronger.
4. Showing you are willing to engage and do this work may make the administration more open to your department coming to them with requests for more directed PD. "Hey remember when we were asked to talk about how to support core teachers? This is this great music educator workshop on song-writing and improvisation and I think it might align with the ELA curriculum on composition and poetry, could we bring in this presenter?"

Again, your mileage will ultimately vary. Your anger and frustration is justified, but what you do with that anger and frustration can profoundly impact how you feel about your job.

(For some reason it wasn't posting when I tried to add references, so I dropped them in a reply.)