Board Member Denese Odegaard

Denese Odegaard, Curriculum Specialist, Fargo (North Dakota) Public Schools Performing Arts

Denese Odegaard, NAfME Immediate Past-President (2018-2020), is currently the Fargo (North Dakota) Public Schools Performing Arts Curriculum Specialist, and taught orchestra for 35 years. National service includes board member for both the American String Teachers Association Board (ASTA) and the National Association for Music Education Board (NAfME). While on the ASTA Board, she was chair of the Committee on School Orchestra and Strings and received the ASTA Citation for Leadership twice.

Her involvement in NAfME includes serving as North Central President and Research Advisor for the 3-5 grade standards writing team. She was Executive Director of the North Dakota Music Educators Association for ten years and served as President of NDMEA.

Odegaard authored Curriculum Writing 101: Assistance with Standards-based Music Curriculum and Assessment Writing for Band, Choir, Orchestra and General Music (GIA): co-authored the ASTA Curriculum (Alfred), edited Kaleidoscope: A Collection of Standards-Based Lesson Plans for the K-7 General Music Classroom (Alfred); and co-authored the ASTA Curriculum Assessment Companion e-book for string music educators.

She has presented curriculum and assessment sessions at international, national, and state conferences including Midwest, ASTA, TMEA, TODA, AMLE, ISME, and three Symposiums on Assessment in Music Education.