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Episode 77: Bill Sprunger, 6th Grade Provost Teacher

Sup with the Sup
Sup with the Sup
Episode 77: Bill Sprunger, 6th Grade Provost Teacher
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 Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up With The Sup’ Podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau, and we are trying something new today. We have a fun episode that I’m super excited about. In our district, we have so many excellent employees who also have talents or hobbies they pursue outside of the classroom.  And today I am visiting with one of these teachers, Bill Sprunger, who teaches sixth grade at Provost Elementary School, is also a talented musician in a bluegrass band, and has performed all across the country. So we are so excited to talk with him today.

But first, let me give you our updates.

  • The district will host the second of two information nights to discuss lease revenue bonds and the district’s upcoming plans to use a lease revenue bond to finish construction at Timpview High School and begin the design phase for the Dixon site on February 20th at 6 o’clock p. m. in the auditorium at the old Dixon Middle School.
  • There are three new policies available for review on our district website. Go to provo. edu, click on Policies, Forms, and Documents. You can click on Review Draft Policies here. You will see a draft of Policy 5160, which is about Employee Religious Beliefs or Conscience, Policy 5250, which is a Conflict of Interest Update, and Policy 5090, which is a Code of Conduct Policy.
  • All of these are really focused on our employees. And so we would love to have employee feedback on these policies. If you have the time to go through and read them, and submit those recommendations, that would be fantastic for our policy committee to have.
  • The next school board meeting will be on Tuesday, February 25th. The study session will take place in boardroom one and the business meeting will be in the professional development center. Public comment is welcome during the business meeting. The board of education will also be voting on those lease revenue bonds in that meeting. And that will start at 6 o’clock p. m. and there will be an opportunity for public comment during that Municipal Building Authority part of the meeting. So please check the district website. For other start times and the agenda as the meeting gets closer.
  • The Utah legislative session is up and running. One of the things that we want to make you aware of is the education appropriations committee is asking for another 40 million dollars for the Utah Fits All scholarship. This is 40 million dollars that we don’t currently have in the state budget. It’s just if they. happen to find that money. And we would really like to push our legislators to put that 40 million to increase the WPU by an additional 1%. This really benefits public education. We have not seen a lot of accountability tied to the current funding for you Fits All scholarship, but please investigate this on your own and let your legislators know what your thoughts are on the process. We love public education obviously here in Provo City School District and want to make sure that it’s appropriately funded so that we can provide excellent opportunities for our students.
  • Continue watching for my weekly videocasts in your email every Monday. These videocasts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

And now, let’s talk with Bill Sprunger. Well, welcome everyone. We’re here today with Bill Sprunger, who is a 6th grade teacher at Provost Elementary.

And we are so excited to have you on our podcast. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. Tell us a little bit about how long you have been teaching and what grade level. Have you always taught sixth grade? Where have you taught? Wow. My long history here in Provo school district.

Yeah. This is my 28th year. I started as an intern teacher in third grade at Edgemont Elementary. Oh, wow. 97, 98. So that’s incredible. It was fun. And then I switched to sixth grade almost immediately the next year. You’re like, please get me out of third grade. Actually, I loved third grade. Okay, good. Okay, good.

But there are always job openings in sixth for some strange reason. Wow. That’s weird. I wonder why. I don’t know. So that’s where I wound up and that’s where I stayed. I, I grew to love it. Oh, that’s awesome. Have you always been at Edgemont or Provost or have there been other schools in between that?

There was kind of a little in between period. I followed a, a principal that I really liked and wanted to go work for for a couple of years over at Franklin. Okay, awesome. And I really enjoyed my two years over at Franklin. That’s a totally different demographic than Edgemont. Yeah. Oh, totally. So I, so Provost is title one and Franklin’s title one, but but there’s, there’s still both.

Very different schools. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. So tell us a little bit about why you decided to become a teacher.

Oh, wow. Well, I didn’t plan on it. That’s for sure. I started out wanting to be a scientist. So I studied geology at, at UCLA and the University of Oregon. And so that’s what I wanted to do was be a, like a, some sort of park ranger slash, you know, studying Sandstone formations and volcanoes and stuff like that.

That was, that was my goal. That sounds awesome, actually. Well, I thought so, but then I spent some volunteer time helping out in some elementary schools and just fell in love with it. And I tried to do both for a while. I actually double majored for a while and then found that my education program at the university of Oregon was ending, so I came here and just did elementary education to finish. That’s awesome. Education just kind of sucks you in, doesn’t it? It does, and I have a long history in my family. My great aunt was a teacher in a one room schoolhouse on the Montana frontier, and so she just was Oh my goodness. She lived to 111.

She’s like Laura Ingalls Wilder or something. She had some amazing stories, just absolutely amazing. So she started out teaching all the grades in one room in a, in the Paradise Valley in Montana. Oh, wow. And so that legacy of education kind of filters through our family. My mom was an educator. She was a junior high teacher, which has got to be the toughest job on earth.

I agree. Yeah. And then I became a teacher and a couple of my other siblings are as well, so. Oh my goodness, a whole family of educators. I love it. That’s incredible. So what do you find most rewarding about teaching? Ooh, there’s a whole bunch of things. I always say that teaching is, for all the criticisms that it gets as a profession, it’s one of the Funnest jobs you can have.

Every day is so different. So I find it rewarding to come to school and just never know. I never know what’s going to happen from day to day. And I love that about the job. I love the groups of kids I get to work with. Probably most I enjoy the association with the students and their families. And getting to know them really well.

Now that I’ve been a teacher for a long time, I spend time at kids weddings and their book release parties. I just went to a book release party for one of my students last week. That’s amazing! And just everything. It’s really fun to still be a part of their lives and just those associations that I built are very valuable to me.

I think it’s really interesting to see how many adults that you hear these stories about how they reach out to specific elementary teachers and they want to share these really incredible life events. It just is such a tribute to what a difference. I just hear it all the time in elementary. It’s so incredible because you spend so much time with the kids every day and you know, their families, you know, their parents, you know, all of the challenges that they’ve had and, and how remarkable it is that they’ve ended up in this particular thing.

Or you’re like, I knew they were going to be a writer cause they were amazing. Like you just, you just know, it’s. It’s so great. I think that’s one of the funnest things about elementary, and that’s why I love sixth grade in the elementary so much is that I get that six hours with them, six and a half hours with them, and I get to know them deeply and, and that translates to a lifetime.

My oldest group is, I don’t know, 38 this year or something, and they remember Mr. Sprunger’s class. Yes, they do. And they know what happened, and they know about our Halloween party, and they know about our fun things that we did, and you know, they don’t remember the lessons. But. But they remember the fun times.

Yes, they do. They remember how they felt. They remember they were cared about. All of those things are super important. Do you have a story about a former student that’s used something that they’ve learned in your class? Like, I love hearing when a kid will say to me, I learned this in such and such a person’s class in elementary school, and then I ended up majoring in it, or I did this.

Do you have a story like that that you’d like to share where someone has been in your class and has come back and you’ve heard about the influence that you’ve made. Hmm, I’d probably share the one from last week just because it’s most recent. Yeah. So I heard through the grapevine and we got some press releases about a book release from a student from my 04-05 class Wow.

Anyway, she’s publishing a book. And so I went to the book release party to say hi and, and to buy her book. And she said, you remember the Greek myth project that we do in class? And we still do that. We write a Greek myth and we publish it. We make a little book and they illustrate it and they, it’s a real book.

It’s like 30 pages long. And so she said that was the first time I pictured myself as an author was when I made that book. And so that was, it was really neat to hear. Yeah. That’s incredible. And I just think it’s so great that you went to that book release party. It just demonstrates how connected our teachers are to our students. I love that.

I also hear that you’re a musician. So tell us how you got into that. And it’s okay to talk about yourself, Bill. Like this is where you’re supposed to brag a little bit. I know. Here we go. Tell us a little bit about how you got into that. Okay. Well, I’ve, I’ve been a musician my whole life. My family have music in them.

And I started out as a violinist as a, as a little kid, I was playing in front of orchestras at 10 and 11. Oh, wow. And so I, I loved music from an early age, but when I got older, I got into bluegrass music. Okay. And decided that I’d learn to play the guitar and the mandolin and learn how to play bluegrass music.

And so when I got here to Utah, I joined a small group that performs here in the Provo. They needed a mandolinist. I had never played the mandolin until they needed a mandolinist. And so I went home and learned and joined the group and that was in 1995. I’ve just been going ever since.

I’ve had a band here in kind of the greater Salt Lake area that’s performed all over the place for the last 20 years or so. What’s your band called? It’s called Cold Creek Bluegrass Band. Oh, I love it. And tell us a little bit about some of the really cool experiences that you’ve had being part of this band, because I hear you have performed and traveled to some pretty extraordinary places.

We’re so lucky. First of all, I came across each of these members of the band that have been with me for 20, 25 years, just in random places, a singer from Arkansas who has just got it in her blood. And, and one of the best fiddlers in the United States just happens to live here and wanted to play with us and, and just, just these amazing musicians.

So this collection of musicians came together. And one of the first things we were asked to do outside of Utah was to represent the United States by the consulate to play in Moscow, Russia for their big celebration. So they, well they flew us out there and we got a chance to play concerts in Moscow, which doesn’t sound as good now as it did a few years ago, but, but it was it was absolutely amazing.

It was Moscow’s 860th birthday party and they had acts from all over the world. And we got to go represent the United States for that. And that was really neat. Wow. What year was that when you did that? I think it was 2006. Oh my goodness. And okay, so you’re in Moscow. Like, okay, if I’m in Moscow, what should I go do?

Like, that just sounds amazing. Like you have, you should go here. Like, you know, I want to, I want to hear about the cool things you saw there. Well, they, they had a minder. That took us around. They kept an eye on us most of the time. We got away one night and explored on the subways, but we got a chance to see all the standard sites and the art museum and the Red Square and all that stuff.

But we got a chance to play a concert in Catherine, the Greats garden outside the palace there. And so we played a concert there and then we found an honest to goodness country western bar in Moscow and a group invited us to come play with them and they were trying to play bluegrass music. They knew about bluegrass music and they loved it And so we just had this connection and we played with that group like all night one night.

So oh, that’s really fun. That sounds fantastic. I think recently you went to Washington DC. So tell us a little bit about that trip and what got you there and where you performed and

Again, we’re so lucky. So we have performed in Utah for a lot of the groups that run events. So our legislature and the church. And so we’ve played with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir before and somehow our name gets out there and we get known. And so they asked us to come represent Utah when Martha Hughes Cannon was being honored. Her statue was being put into the Capitol and they’d been preparing for this for like a year and they’ve been delayed and, and so they asked us to come play they said that, well, she was from Wales and then she ended up returning to Wales at the end of her life, but she was just an amazing lady.

And so they said that she would have appreciated something from Wales to represent her. So in the capital, we played the, the Welsh National Anthem. And we bluegrassed it up. It sounded like a bluegrass song, but I hope she would have liked it. And we played that for the installing of the statue.

That’s incredible. It was really neat. That’s really cool. And then you’ve also performed at the British embassy. Yes. They asked us to come, come to the British embassy. And so we actually got to meet like the, the Welsh folks that were kind of hosting the events. And I’m hoping, we’ll see, there’s a possibility next year they’re going to put one of her statues in Wales and we’re hoping to get to go play for that too, so. That would be incredible to go to Wales. That would be an incredible trip. I’ll cross my fingers. Yes, I’m crossing my fingers for you. That sounds incredible.

What’s the best part about performing music? Like, what do you love the most about it? I don’t know. Like, I think you need to articulate what you love about that, because it’s as important as the love that you have for teaching.

I still remember the first night that this current formation of the group got together and played. In somebody’s house, it’s the melding of the five instruments in one and the sound they make together. It’s that amazing combination of sounds and the way it creates something special. So for me, it rarely has anything to do with the show or the audience or anything. It’s just the making of the music and the sound that comes out of that and the joy that we get from performing together. All five of us comment regularly that it’s not about the events. It’s just about playing music together. That’s that’s incredible. That’s incredible.

They even say musicians, when you perform together, your hearts will start to like beat in sync and it lowers people’s blood pressure. Like there really is something quite profound about it that just is something that can’t even be explained. And I’m just, I’m fascinated by that. I would believe that that’s true. So I’ll have to find the actual research on that one, but I’ll send it to you. But it’s, it’s pretty incredible. There’s actual physical health benefits from being part of a musical group like that and how you are syncing all of those instruments together to create this unified sound it’s pretty amazing. So you have a fiddler that’s part of this. You have a singer that’s part of your band. She plays the big string bass and sings for us. And then you are the mandolinist. I usually play the guitar, but I’m back and forth between mandolin and guitar. And then who else do you have? We have a banjo player.

Oh yes. You gotta have a banjo. So, so that’s kind of all the instruments there, but we just we trade back and forth on instruments as we need to. Okay. That’s, that’s awesome. Most bluegrass musicians can play several instruments and sing and do the, do the whole thing. And this is just such a talented group. I listen and. And I’m amazed every time, so.

So how would we find out about, say, a performance if we wanted to come and listen to you? Well, there’s, let’s see that we do have a website that’s up and running and we don’t keep our calendar very well, but it’s coldcreekband. com and so it’s a fun way just to, just to hear some music and see some of the things we’ve done. Oh, that’s awesome.

How has being a musician helped you as a teacher? That’s a good question. I’ve always felt that music has some connections to certain aspects of education, like I think music and math go together like beautifully and I’ve always thought that music and like communication skills go well together and so I think it’s helped a little bit there.

I’ve even tried to bring it into my classroom so at one point, we got a set of guitars at Provost and for about five or six years, I was teaching guitar classes to my sixth graders. And so just trying to, to get them introduced to music and, you know, when we got going in the band program for sixth grade, we, we ended up dropping that out, but, but I really enjoyed sharing the guitar with them and getting them started. And getting them on that path of music.

All right. Are you ready to play us something? Oh boy. All right. I’d love to hear it. All right. Let me grab my mandolin. Okay. Here we go.

Nice . There you go. I think it’s amazing. Oh dear. Yeah. This is a, this is the mandolin. I can see the mandolin, but our, our listeners can’t see it. So tell us how a mandolin is different from a guitar. Yeah. The mandolin is actually more of a fiddle, so it’s a, yeah. So it’s just like a violin. It’s got the same strings, e,a,d,g, and it’s doubled up strings and it’s got frets like a guitar, and it’s picked.

Picked with a standard pick. So there you go back and forth on the strings like that. That’s amazing. It’s a really neat instrument that is really cool.

Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here and sharing your Awesome talents with us and just your love of teaching and for being in Provo City School District. We’re so lucky to have you Oh, I’m lucky to be here. Thank you very much.

very much Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu.

And don’t forget to join us again next week for another new episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. Have a great weekend!

Shauna Sprunger
  • Coordinator of Communications
  • Shauna Sprunger
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