Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
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Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Snow Canyon Middle School is creating connections between students with and without disabilities, using the power of music to build confidence, friendships and inclusion through United Sound – a nationally recognized program.
“Music teaches life skills for every single person involved,” orchestra and jazz band teacher Hayley Winslow said. “You can’t do it in isolation. You have to be part of a team. In the end, the goal is the same. And because it’s the same, you find a way to unify, and that’s something we need in this world right now.”
Through her teaching experience, Winslow said she’s learned that special needs students learn music differently, yet it remains an essential part of who they are and what they need in their lives. Too often, music is taught in ways that create frustration rather than success because the required skill level frequently exceeds the students’ abilities.
“So this fills the gap for those kids,” she said. “We utilize our peer mentors, who are students who know how to play instruments already, and they are paired with one of our Life Skills students. They learn who they are, they learn what their skills are, then meet them where they are and progress at the rate they need to progress.”
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Life skills students are referred to as “New Musicians,” and each is paired with three peer mentors. Winslow said the mentors not only help them learn music but also form close friendships as they work and create and build skills together to foster intentional inclusion.
The collaboration is designed to be enjoyable, incorporating daily games and nonmusical activities that help students connect on a personal level. While they’re learning and working together, Winslow said it often feels more like fun than effort. The participating peer mentors also gain invaluable social and life skills that cannot be learned anywhere else.
Parent Melissa Dixon, whose daughter Molly is a special needs student at Snow Canyon Middle School and participates in the United Sound program, noted the impact the program has had on her daughter’s life.
“United Sound has given Molly things that many special needs students never experience,” Dixon said. “Molly has friends — true friends – even kids who asked to take selfies with Molly at back-to-school night and tell us they are friends with Molly because of United Sound.”
She said her daughter is now recognized as a member of the program, can play an instrument, has gained confidence and feels a sense of inclusion.
As an educator, Winslow said hearing such statements matters more than any musical achievement because the true value of the program lies in inclusion and friendship.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
Funding and Costs
The program costs $35 per child per year, but Winslow said state law prevents the school from collecting the fee, requiring the school to raise the funds. Each year, she hosts musical fundraisers to help cover program costs and provide instruments for students in need.
Winslow said that having more autonomy, as a school or a teacher, to acquire instruments is another reason the program needs additional funding. She prefers to let students choose the instrument they want to play to give them a sense of autonomy. For United Sound participants, she provides the instruments, which this year meant students had to select from what was available rather than pick any instrument they wanted.
She already rents about 90 instruments through the school at a discounted rate, since many families struggle to afford rental fees from local or national music providers. Each year, the school spends more on instrument repairs than it collects in rental fees.
Seeking the community’s help
To sustain the United Sound program each year, Winslow said the school needs about $2,000 to include all interested students. In addition, each instrument costs roughly $1,000. In addition to monetary donations, the school also accepts used musical instruments.
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
“What I would love to see happen is to get enough funding for the next five years so we don’t have to worry about money year after year,” Winslow said. “That would be ideal. If we could do 10, that would be even more ideal.”
Those interested in supporting Snow Canyon Middle School’s United Sound program can drop off monetary donations in person at 1215 Lava Flow Drive in St. George. Online donations can be made here by selecting the general foundation fund and entering “United Sound” in the additional information box.
Instrument donations can be coordinated by emailing Winslow at hayley.winslow@washk12.org. For questions or more details, call 435-674-6474.
“Any help we can get from our community is so, so appreciated,” Winslow said. “None of this can be done on our own. Music doesn’t happen in isolation. It takes a community to make it work. We are never complete without our audience.”
Ed. note: When making charitable contributions, it is advisable to consult with professionals for tax advice and investment risks.
About United Sound
Winslow said United Sound is a peer mentor-based nonprofit organization headquartered in Arizona. Founded in 2014 by Julie Duty, the program connects students with and without disabilities, helping them build self-esteem, confidence, friendships and a sense of belonging through music.
“She was a teacher, and she found the same frustrations that I have found in teaching — inclusion within my classes,” Winslow said. “Music is a very activity-based subject area, and students need certain skills in order to progress.”
Utah Symphony students serve as peer mentors, helping children with disabilities learn music at Snow Canyon Middle School in St. George, Utah, Oct. 1, 2025.
According to the United Sound website, over 12,000 students in 31 states have participated in United Sound in its first eight years, logging over 250,000 hours of relationship-building and music-making together.
Bringing the Program to Washington County
Winslow said she attended a Band Directors’ conference in Indiana, where United Sound was presented. Although she had seen the program in action before, she wasn’t initially sure what it was, only that it seemed impressive. After a formal introduction at the conference, she fell in love with the concept.
“I mean, I was a mess,” she said. “I was crying. I was like, this is so amazingly intense and real, you know? It just brought me to a place out of my frustration where I wanted to teach these kids appropriate music education, and I had never found an outlet to do that. And then here it was sitting right in front of me.”
Winslow said Snow Canyon Middle School has a great Life Skills teacher, and it took both of them being fully on board and completing training to get the program started. School administrators agreed to cover the startup fee, and the program launched last year.
Snow Canyon Middle School will host two concerts each year featuring United Sound students. This year, United Sound will join the orchestra for a winter concert on Monday, Dec. 8, from 7-8 p.m. at Snow Canyon High School, and a band concert on Tuesday, Dec. 9, at 7 p.m. Performers will include students in grades seven through 12, as well as United Sound participants.
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