Why Did Regina Public School Kill Band?

After 16 years working as an elementary school band teacher for Regina Public Schools, my wife quit her job. The job was impossibly difficult: managing 200+ students, their families, travelling between 9 elementary schools, plus 1 high school, every single week - and all of the complexities that implies: kids with high needs, entitled or neglectful parents, bad administrators, other teachers booking events over band, not having her own desk or workspace - which often made her car her office and frequently included the bonus of classroom teachers (teachers who operate out of their own classroom) not knowing her, being excluded from individual schools' events, paying for school materials out of her own pocket due to lack of budget, always having to manage more and more with less and less. She always knew the job was hard, but she did it anyway because despite the colossal problem-solving required, she got to spend the remaining 20% of time not devoured by all that nonsense doing the…