Andrew and Marissa Lopez didn’t just teach music at Conniston Middle and Forest Hill High schools. They built a band, a community of young musicians that they hope will be their legacy.
The Lopezes won’t return to the two schools along Parker Avenue in West Palm Beach. They have enlisted as musicians in the U.S. Army and have plans to start a family. They say their love of the people, the life and the music of the 33405 zip code will stay with them wherever they go.
“There’s always a catch. But there is no catch,” Andrew said. “I just teach really wonderful kids in a really wonderful community who are exceptionally hardworking and talented, and they have our entire hearts.”
Their story began not in Palm Beach County but in college, when they met at the Florida Music Education Association conference and were assigned to count votes in a leadership election. Marissa had just been elected president-elect of the collegiate division; Andrew was the parliamentarian. They were strangers until that moment, and then they weren’t.Andrew arrived at Conniston in 2016 as a 22-year-old, fresh from the University of Central Florida. Coming into the program that had a difficult reputation, Andrew was determined to challenge it.
“Every single band director, except for two people, was like, ‘You’re screwed. Get out!'” Andrew said. “It was really negative being like a 22-year-old kid straight out of college, and just being told, you know, ‘Your job’s going to suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ ”
But he stayed. And then he started seeing that change. Enrollment climbed. Students’ interest in the band peaked. Within a few years, Conniston’s band had grown into one of the largest and most respected in Palm Beach County, topping out at 270 students, nearly a quarter of the school’s student enrollment.
“The music community expected nothing of our students, and it was infuriating, because I go to work every day, and my job is awesome. And I would hear all these other band directors at all these big, prestigious schools and programs who are dealing with all these problems, and I just sit there quietly,” Andrew said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I thought my job was the hard one, yet you’re the one who’s having all these problems. People really need to understand how special Parker Avenue schools are.”
Marissa got a long-term position in Fort Myers, where they spent two and a half years driving back and forth across Southern Boulevard on weekends just to close the distance. Eventually, the choice was simple: West Palm Beach was home. She returned, spent time at the district’s fine arts office, and arrived at Forest Hill High School in 2021. By the time Marissa arrived, the wick was there. It just needed a spark.
“It struggled as far as size. It struggled in assessment ratings, things like that. But I knew that there was higher potential there because I had seen what Andrew was producing,” Marissa said. “I was like, ‘If I can just get those kids through the door, if I can get them to stick with it through high school, we can make this happen.’ And it’s been a wonderful thing.”They found help in each other. Andrew already knew these kids Marissa was teaching, their stories, their struggles, and their strengths, and that institutional knowledge became the secret weapon.
“Any time there was a disconnect, it was like I had the book of secrets,” Marissa said. “I could figure out how to reach these kids and make sure that they felt seen and heard.”
The results followed. In 2025, Forest Hill was nominated for the Tom Bishop Award from the Florida Bandmasters Association, one of the state’s most prestigious honors for most-improved band programs. The sixth-through-12th-grade pipeline they built together became a model for what a feeder program can look like when both directors are invested in each other’s success.
The Lopez family’s philosophy is that band can give students an escape, a place where they can be themselves outside of their GPA.
Electives “are the reason that kids come to school, I think it’s so special to be part of the heart and soul of your school, because all elective teachers, if they do it right, and can, all of us have that power and hold that power to literally change the whole community,” Andrew said.
“When you have a bunch of kids that just love to be in your classroom, they’re going to slowly fall in love with the rest of the school.”
Andrew likes to point out that he’s never had a recruitment problem, never had a parent blow up in his inbox, never had a kid he couldn’t eventually reach. Not because the job was easy, but because the overlooked community he served showed up for him.
“Lake Clarke Shores, Palm Springs, and West Palm produce some of those beautiful children on this planet,” Andrew said. “There are some people who can’t break the bias, and, like, there are people this year who are like, ‘Oh wait, your band can play that?’ It’s like, ‘Bro, we’ve been doing that for the past decade. Where have you been?’ You know? And it’s such a gift to have been at a school where it’s just the best-kept secret in South Florida.”
Marissa gets emotional talking about her life as a band director, too. About the joy of watching a kid walk in and walk out at 18 as a fully formed adult, instrument still in hand. Not because they’re going to music school, but because someone taught them to love it.
“They have our whole hearts,” Marissa said. “Every bit of it. It’s just been such a blessing to know these kids and to watch them grow up.”
The rumors, when word got out that the Lopezes were leaving, were that they were quitting. They want to be clear: They’re not.
“We’re not quitting teaching, and we’re not quitting on our kids,” Marissa said. “We’re just ready for the next chapter.”
The next chapter involves Army uniforms, a new state, and eventually, a child they’re hoping will inherit a little of what they’ve learned from their students.
“They have taught us so much,” Andrew said. “And I hope that in our next chapter, when we have a child, that they are half as kind and hardworking and caring and empathetic as the ones we’ve had the privilege of teaching.”
They’re leaving behind two successors (which have not been announced) they helped choose, two band programs that are anything but broken, and a community on Parker Avenue that has been one of the best-kept secrets in South Florida.
“I will go to bat with anybody in that zip code,” Andrew said. “That’s just how it works.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Band directors say goodbye to West Palm music community they helped build
Reporting by Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
