In our our May 2025 blog post, we announced that 82% of Sparks students in 2024-2025 made progress on their individually assigned social-emotional learning (SEL) skill goals, per reports from our music therapists. Not only did our music therapists report on the progress of the students, but our students also took a survey about their experience of participating in music therapy.
We are excited to announce that, compared to 2023-2024, our students gave more positive responses overall on this year’s self-report survey. While we had approximately half the responses this year compared to the prior year, the students who did respond showed similarities or improvements to those who responded last year in how they perceived their own progress in developing their skills as a result of music therapy.
Check out the comparison below from 2023-2024 results (left) to 2024-2025 results (right) in the top 3 areas of student self-reported progress:
Music class helps me control my body and keep it safe:
2023-2024: 2024-2025:
- A lot: 56.3% A lot: 77.4%
- A little bit: 31.3% A little bit: 19.4%
- I don’t know: 10.9% I don’t know: 3.2%
- No: 1.5% No: 0%
Our students made a significant jump from 87% last year to nearly 97% this year improving their impulse control! This skill is critical for them to effectively adjust to the school setting, participate meaningfully in their classes and learn during the school day.
Music class helps me make good choices at school:
2023-2024: 2024-2025:
- A lot: 65.6% A lot: 83.9%
- A little bit: 18.8% A little bit: 9.7%
- I don’t know: 10.9% I don’t know: 6.4%
- No: 4.7% No: 0%
Here, our students made notable progress in improving their ability to make good choices, from 84.4% in 23-24 to 93.6% in 24-25. This skill is crucial for them to get along with others and stay in school (instead of getting sent to the principal’s office, receiving juvenile detention, or being suspended or expelled).
Music class helps me feel better on hard days:
2023-2024: 2024-2025:
- A lot: 68.8% A lot: 83.9%
- A little bit: 28.1% A little bit: 9.7%
- I don’t know: 3.1% I don’t know: 6.4%
- No: 0% No: 0%
While slightly less progress was made this year compared to the prior year, the skill of self-regulation is not easy for any age to master. Thus, a similar result shows that the techniques our music therapists use are consistently helping our students develop their ability to calm down. Once calm, the students can begin to identify what they are feeling so they can make positive choices in response to their challenges.
Additional Results and Student Feedback
We found the following social-emotional learning (SEL) goals yielded similar improvements across student self-reports year over year:
- Self-esteem increased “a lot”: (from 82.8% in 23-24 to 83.9% in 24-25).
- Expressing emotions increased “a lot”: (from 56.3% in 23-24 to 64.5% in 24-25). Additionally, an overall increase was noted, from 86% experiencing “a lot” and “a little” improvement in 2023-2024, up to 90% in 2024-2025.
Almost exactly the same percentage said they would recommend music class to a friend: 93.7% in 2023-2024, and 93.6 in 2024-2025!
In addition, we got overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students when asked about their opinion of participating in music therapy sessions during the year. Here’s what some of our students had to say, in their own words:
- “Si me diverti mucho y aprendi nuevos intrumentos.” (“Yes, I had a lot of fun and I learned new instruments.”)
- “I love…getting to sing and dance.”
- “Me encanto el piano.” (“I love the piano.”)
- “…It is so fun. It is my peace place.”
- “I love music class! And I tell my friends about it!”
That about sums it up – our students are saying they are benefiting from and enjoying music therapy. And that’s just as important as external indicators of progress.
Want to help even more children of inmates have the opportunity to change their trajectory in life through participation in music?
