Courtesy of Chuck Nelson, Columbus Monthly
October 17, 2024 -- When Dominion Middle School principal Dottie Flanagan interviewed Bruce Carlson for an opening in the music department 15 years ago, she thought his ideas for the program might be overly ambitious.
“But he’s managed to reach them,” she says. And then some.
When he started at Dominion, the school had 30 instruments—all broken. “Not every kid can afford an instrument. We had way more kids than instruments,” Carlson says about his first years at the school, which moved in 2020 from East Dominion Boulevard to the former North High School.
Fundraising through a new band booster program helped change that. Now, the school has more than 150 working instruments. “It’s transformed a lot of lives,” says Carlson, who was named the middle school winner in the Columbus Parent/Columbus Monthly 2024 Teachers of the Year awards. “If they have a decent instrument, they’re going to sound a lot better.”
“Bruce was really resourceful at finding ways to get instruments in these kids’ hands,” says Jenna McGuinness of Clintonville, who nominated Carlson for the award. Her son Noah was among those who benefitted from the music program. “My son was not a strong student before he came to Dominion,” says McGuinness, “and now he’s an honor roll student”—an achievement she attributes in part to the confidence he acquired through band.
For the 2024 Teachers of the Year awards (the 10th year for the recognition program), readers nominated K-12 teachers online from March 7 to April 5. Educators at public and private schools throughout the Columbus region were nominated by current and former students, parents, administrators, colleagues and family members. Our editorial staffs reviewed all the submissions, did some independent research and narrowed the list to 15 finalists. Readers voted May 24 through June 19 to determine the three winners.
Carlson, 60, who lives in Lewis Center with his wife, Molly, and children Nels and Anna, planned to be a veterinarian, but developed terrible allergies to cats and dogs during his college years.
His mother—a flute player who taught in the Cleveland area—got him involved in music, buying him a baritone horn in 1973. “I always dreamed of being the quarterback for Ohio State or being in the Ohio State marching band. The quarterback thing didn’t work out,” Carlson says with a laugh, “but I was in the band.”
