HAVERHILL — The sweet sounds of band music will begin wafting through the city's middle schools again in January.

The middle school band program, which has not operated so far this school year, will be partially restored for the second half of the year, Superintendent Raleigh Buchanan said.

"At least we'll be giving lessons and it won't die," he said.

Financial difficulties caused the demise of the program. Parents complained at the start of the school year that their children were surprised to find out their bands had been cut.

Parents were happy to find the program will be restored.

Cyndi O'Shaughnessy, whose husband, Thomas O'Shaughnessy, is a former president of the Haverhill High School Band Parents Association, has seen the pattern of doing away with the middle school band program, then reviving it, before.

When the middle school program suffers cuts, she said, "You lose kids and you lose parents."

For years, the middle school bands acted as a "feeder" program for the Haverhill High band. That band's numbers have dropped over the last several years.

Band instruction needs to start in the younger grades in order to build a good high school band, Cyndi O'Shaughnessy said.

"They've got to support it all the way through," she said.

Her daughter Colleen plays the flute and was in the band from fifth grade right through her graduation from Haverhill High in 2006. Colleen was the drum major for the high school band and also participated in the color guard.

Today she's majoring in history at the University of Massachusetts.

Last spring, the School Committee initially expected to reduce the "encore" subjects — music, art and physical education — by half. Then the committee restored some cuts to those programs, but eight teachers from those subjects were laid off.

Shortly before the start of this school year, the committee voted to do away with the middle school band program because there were not enough teachers, Buchanan said.

Money in the band fund, as well as savings from a couple of positions that were not filled, will provide enough money — $15,000 — to offer the program for the second half of the school year, he said.

Instruction will be offered before and after school and will be available at all four middle schools, the superintendent said.

Buchanan said he met with the Band Parents Association earlier this month.

"It's very clear the administration has to work out the details," he said.

Mary Malone, principal of Consentino Middle School, said she expects 30 of her students are likely to participate in the restored band program at her school. In the meantime, teachers have started a guitar ensemble with some students and organized a chorus of middle-schoolers.

"We will have a winter concert," Malone said.

"That's good news," Whittier Middle School Principal Beth Kitsos said when told about the band program's comeback.

She said probably 25 to 30 of her students will participate.

"It was sad," she said of the decision to end the band program.

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