In 1999, Holly DeWitt was about to start her second year teaching choir at Brookside Middle School. Her first had come with all the anticipated professional challenges. But one stood out. 

“The band director we had was pretty reclusive,” she says. “He didn’t want to work with me and [the department] was pretty separate.” 

DeWitt, who had always pictured herself in a symbiotic environment, struggled with the separatist approach. So, when the opportunity arose to hand select Brookside’s next band director, she was eager to find a teaching partner who shared her perspective. 

“I always envisioned us as a music department,” she says. “You know, not one entity was more important than the other.” 

Fortunately, DeWitt was about to meet the partner who would make her vision a reality. 

From their first conversation, it was obvious that Marina Pope was the perfect fit, one that would last decades. “She had the same philosophy I did,” DeWitt says. This summer, Pope and DeWitt are retiring together after 27 years of teaching side by side at Brookside, just as the school is being rebranded as the Gulf Coast Academy of Innovation and Technology @ Brookside. Not only are they valued coworkers, they are also cherished friends - an outcome neither would have foreseen in 1999. 

“Choir and band directors never worked as closely, I guess,” Pope says. “But I know that I could not have done this — have gotten this far — without Holly. I just think we worked so well together from the get-go.” 

They can laugh about it now, but in those turbulent early years, both spent a lot of time in tears. 

“When I first taught with [Holly], I was having — and I will never forget this — I was having a hard day and I just didn’t feel like I was getting through to the kids and I just… at the end of the day, I just bawled,” Pope says. “And Holly came in and said ‘it’ll be ok.’ So if anything, you need to have somebody there to decompress with… who understands exactly where you are because they can help you through that and that’s what I needed.” 

In addition to teaching, DeWitt juggled the challenge of being a mother to two baby boys. She made it look easy from the outside.  

“I remember when we were an early-start school, I would drop the oldest off at 6:30 in the morning at daycare to come to school and be here by 7 and he would stand in the window waving at me crying,” she remembers. “That was horrible. And I would tell [Marina], “how can I be here with everybody else’s kids and my kids are crying because I’m not with them?” 

Pope and DeWitt were lucky: work-related challenges were few and far between. But when they arose, they relied on the same principles they used in their approach to the music department. 

“We have always been honest with one another and worked together for the good of our students and continuing music education,” DeWitt says. “I think it has been important for us both to find common ground and build on that.” 

In 2000, Pope and DeWitt got a fresh start when they became the first occupants of a new building when the original Brookside campus — where DeWitt had also been a student — was demolished.  With the exception of a few years, DeWitt has been the only teacher in the choir and orchestra rooms. Pope has been the sole resident of the band room. 

Gradually, the two teachers transformed the new music rooms into an oasis for students. Bare white walls were covered in posters (music jokes, classroom rules, and Pope’s now famous Captain Jack Sparrow – the protagonist of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise). Empty spaces were filled with chairs and stands. Instruments and music books were purchased to fill the locker rooms, available for students to borrow. 

Different kinds of memorabilia began to emerge too. Class pictures, taken every few years, filled the remaining wall space. Trophies and plaques from competitions and assessments gathered on shelves. Cards and pictures from former students hung from bulletin and white boards. 

All of it is a striking physical reminder of their many years of hard work. 

In all of that time, they never lost sight of their goal to provide students as many opportunities as possible. 

Austin Canon, one of Pope’s band students who is now a professional trombonist, fondly remembers the extra effort Pope made when he was a student. 

“She was the first teacher to make me feel welcomed, and as a music educator, she was incredibly generous with how many opportunities she gave me,” he says. “I vividly remember her willingness to get to work early just to have the band room opened so that I could come and practice in the morning and then stay late just because I was practicing. Not many teachers are willing to go above and beyond for their students.” 

“We loved when our kids were in more than one [music class],” DeWitt says. “You know, kids that wanted to sing, kids that wanted to play an instrument - they were able to do that.”  

Forming a music program takes nothing short of a village, which is something Pope and DeWitt feel grateful they’ve never gone without. 

“In all the years that I’ve been here, I’ve never had an issue with sending an instrument off to be repaired and not having the money to do that,” Pope says. “And if I wanted to buy a new instrument, I was always supported.” 

The financial support was also extended to DeWitt, who is grateful for the response she received to a passion project started after orchestra was removed from Brookside’s elective offerings in 2001. 

“We had the orchestra room and we weren’t offering orchestra anymore,” she says. “Keyboard is one of my passions. So when I went to my principal at the time, Karen Rose, and said, ‘I want to have a keyboard lab,’ she [responded], ‘I think it’s wonderful. I can get you technology funds.”

Rose matched a grant from the Selby Foundation and the Brookside keyboard lab was born.  Plus, the Brookside community never failed to show up for fundraising, volunteer support and concert attendance.

“Whenever we’ve taken groups out to play, they’ve always played to great audiences,” Pope says. “And we always have full houses here when we do concerts.”

When you spend as much time working together as Pope and DeWitt, you find that conversations naturally turn personal. Over time, they discovered that their religious faiths helped to ground their relationship. 

“I have confidence in sharing with Marina because she is kind with a compassionate heart,” DeWitt says. “As our professional relationship grew, so did our friendship built on that trust.” 

They often play together at their church – DeWitt on piano and Pope on horn. 

“I am just so proud that she has helped strengthen my faith,” Pope says. “Holly has a peace about her that she does not get upset or react. She often made reference to the Lord (in a quiet way) as everything being in His hands. She modeled her faith and those actions spoke volumes.” 

Affectionately dubbed “Miss Marinara” by DeWitt’s two children, the Brookside band director became a constant presence in the DeWitt family household. Their friendship blossomed into a true familial bond. 

“Marina is part of our family,” DeWitt says. “She’s been to [my children’s] high school graduations, their college graduations, any time we had family gatherings.” 

As with any friendship, there were hitches. But their teaching principles transferred just as naturally to personal disputes as it did professional ones. 

“One thing I’ve learned from our relationship is you can agree to disagree. I think people in our society nowadays do not know that,” DeWitt says. “We are on opposite ends of the spectrum sometimes with some of our beliefs and thoughts… but I would never judge her for what she believes and she would never judge me for what I believe.” 

Their simultaneous retirement this August is a happy coincidence. Pope had always planned to leave after 30 years of teaching in Florida, which she achieved this year. DeWitt’s situation was a bit different. She planned to work until 2030, but her husband became ill and had to go on disability last summer.

“So he and I decided this would be my last year teaching,” she says. “And then [Marina] was like, ‘it’s my 30th year so it’s my last year’ and I was like well there’s no way I was going to be here without her.” 

Both feel their lives as teachers have been incredibly rewarding. 

“We couldn’t be more blessed to have been here and in this profession,” DeWitt says. “There’s been so much positive. I look at so many of the kids that have gone on and what they’ve done and some are now educators and some are music educators - just to be able to watch that has been…” Words escape her. 

Arts educators often teach students for multiple years and stay in touch with them long after graduation, allowing them to build more in-depth mentorships. 

“That’s one of the reasons I became a teacher — a music teacher especially — because I just felt so great about it,” Pope says. “I knew what it had brought to my life and I wanted to share that with the students.” 

Whether or not students pursued a musical career, Pope and DeWitt are exceptionally proud that they’ve been able to share a love of music – a lifelong gift. 

“I always tell them: ‘it’s in you,” Pope says. “You may come back to it — maybe when you’re 50 — but it’s in you. ” 

“It doesn’t have to be their career,” DeWitt adds. “That’s one thing I think we both agreed on and we share with students is that music is something you can love and enjoy your whole life.” 

With their departure, Brookside – now renamed Gulf Coast Academy of Innovation & Technology at Brookside – will begin a new chapter.

The Sarasota County school district has downsized its teaching staff citing low student populations this year, and Brookside’s music department will now have just one educator: first-year teacher Zöe Trumble, who will be teaching band, choir, and orchestra all on her own. 

Pope and DeWitt are confident in Trumble’s abilities. She has shown incredible initiative in the past year — which she’s spent teaching orchestra with the veteran teachers while finishing her studies in choral music education. 

“She’s passionate. She loves it, but she’s a choral person,” DeWitt says. “She’s taken on orchestra this year like gangbusters.”