Prior to joining TISD’s administration, Tomlinson said she worked as the district fine arts administrator at Flour Bluff ISD in Corpus Christi; as the inaugural fine arts director for Nacogdoches ISD; and as a band director in South Carolina, Florida and Texas. Tomlinson earned a master’s degree in music education in instrumental music from Florida State University, according to a May news release from TISD.
In an interview with Community Impact, Tomlinson discussed her first three months on the job, new programs she’s implementing and what drew her to TISD.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What made you interested in applying for this position?
I haven't lived in Texas my whole life. I got here as soon as I could, but the first place I lived was Nacogdoches. A lot of times, I would come down to this area to shop or to go to an Astros game, and ... I really loved the area, and then I also met my predecessor, JD Janda, who was the director of fine arts here prior to me. He took me under his wing as a mentor, and ... I learned a lot about TISD through him and through seeing his successes. ... I would call and ask him questions as I was learning because I was the first director of fine arts in NACISD. ... So I learned about TISD and actually patterned a lot of things in NACISD after TISD because I thought that what he did was so great. The other thing that made me really interested in coming to Tomball was ... it's so similar to where I grew up ... in a place called Marietta [in Georgia].
What sort of experience do you bring to this role?
My husband [is] a college professor, and so with that came moving around a lot to support him through that. ... I taught band in many places ... within South Carolina and Florida and here in Texas. With all of those moves, not only did I get a different perspective from different states and how different states do things, but also just different groups of people. Being able to relate very quickly to groups of people has helped me in this role to be able to get to know people quickly and meet people where they're at and figure out what it is they need and how I can connect with them.
Teaching band is a huge undertaking, and there's a lot that goes into it. It's like running a small business. Being a head band director for basically my entire career was very helpful. There was also a school where I taught half band and half choir. Being able to learn about that world—which is still music, but it's very different from the band world—was helpful. At the school I taught at in Florida, I helped a lot with the musical theater program, and so I got involved in that part. So I got a little taste of theater. ...
When I got to my job in Nacogdoches as the first director of fine arts, I immersed myself in the art world. I volunteered for all their events, and I sat in their classrooms just so that I can learn what it is that art teachers need, what kind of support they need. Then I did the same thing the next year with theater, and ... I keep trying to learn all the things I don't know because even though my scope was band, everybody's discipline is important.
What have been your priorities so far, and is there anything you want to highlight that you've already started working on?
My priority for this entire first year is building relationships with the people I work with. So, I need to learn about Tomball, and I need to learn how Tomball does things. ... I've been working on building solid, good positive relationships with everyone because ... the people you work with and the people you surround yourself with and how you treat people is the most important thing, right? So building relationships has been my priority and learning.
However, we have tackled a few big things; we hosted our first Drum Corps International show. ... I think it was like three weeks into the job, and we hosted a huge event that 5,000 people came to, so that taught me a lot about the organization.
Then the other thing that we're getting off the ground right now, and I think that we're all very excited about—especially [Superintendent Martha Salazar-Zamora]—is our mariachi program. We are piloting an after-school version of it in hopes of making it a full-fledged [University Interscholastic League] competing program. We're going to pilot that at Tomball High School starting in the spring, and we've been laying the groundwork for that. The amount of support that's here at Tomball for that program is just wonderful, and so I think it's going to end up being a really great addition to our fine arts programming.
Was [the mariachi program] something that was in the works when you got here?
It was in talks. Mariachi is becoming a much bigger program. They have a UIL now, and that's all pretty recent, within the last couple of years. The thing about mariachi is it's an opportunity for more students to get involved, and it's an opportunity for students to learn about another culture or to celebrate their own.
I'm just excited to see how many school districts are beginning to add it. I think you'll see that if you fast forward 10 years into the future, everybody's going to have it. It's new right now, but it's not new in other parts of the state. In other parts of the state, it's been around forever. It's kind of newer in our area right now, but yes, I know they have been talking about it, and I told [Salazar-Zamora] that I would get it off the ground this year, and so we've been working on it.
Do you have any priorities for the long term that you're already thinking about?
Tomball is growing very rapidly, and what we want to do is make sure that all of our Tomball students have ample opportunities to be involved in fine arts. Fine arts is so good for kids because it educates them as the whole student. If I had my way, every single student, [they] would be in fine arts for their entire school career. It is part of their graduation plan that they have to have certain credits, but I want every kid in a fine art.
So, my goals are to expand the number of students that we serve and that we reach. ... That means programming or adding new activities or like just increasing the capacity of our existing programs so that they can serve more kids, making sure that all kids have really awesome equitable opportunities at those programs. So as we grow, implementing programs, the ones we've already got, keeping them really great, and keeping them really supported and robust, and then as we see fit, beginning to add new things to our program.
What would you say sets TISD's fine arts department apart from other ISDs?
I think that ... we're extremely close knit. So [even] though we are a midsize, larger school district, and we're growing, we still feel like a one-high school ... town. We work really closely together, and I think it's because we build great relationships with one another, then we take that relationship building, and our teachers in turn build those relationships with their students. ... It's a really special place where everybody feels valued.
How would you say the enrollment in the fine arts program has looked during the last few years, and how are you hoping it will look going forward?
As it's my first three months here, [I'm] still kind of learning about all of that, but I do know that the fine arts enrollment at TISD is extremely robust, like it's high. It's right where it needs to be. I do believe as we move forward and we ... hang on to teachers and keep teachers happy and fulfilled, and they keep coming back. That's what brings kids back, and that's what gets kids to come in.
I also believe that adding programming that reaches kids that we don't currently reach like the mariachi program, or potentially a guitar program, things that we don't currently offer that will bring students in who aren't already in band or visual art or something like that. So the sky is the limit as far as enrollment is concerned with kids and what we can offer, but ... I do think it'll continue to grow.
