Eugene School District 4J

Choir teacher Megan Perdue teaches in the same room at Sheldon High School where she once sang as a student, where her father sang as a student decades earlier, and where her two sons, who are now enrolled in 4J schools, will likely sing as students in a few years.

“4J runs deep in my family,” said Perdue, who is also 4J’s K-12 music curriculum specialist.

As does music. Every school day, Perdue works to not only instill in her students the same love of music that she developed growing up in a household of musicians, but also make it accessible to as many 4J students as possible, including those who may have trouble playing – or even holding – an instrument.

Perdue’s career at 4J has hit another high note as she’s been named one of nation’s top 30 music teachers by the CMA Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the trade association for country music that honors its best and brightest each year at the CMA Awards.

She and the group were invited to Nashville for a Sept. 10 gala honoring their accomplishment. She also was featured in a Good Morning America segment about the 2025 class of CMA Foundation Music Teachers of Excellence. She will use the $5,000 award she received to help pay the way for more than 70 members of her varsity choir to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City in March. She also teaches concert choir and the Dublinaries, Sheldon’s jazz and a cappella group.

Perdue has sang and played piano since childhood, following in the musical footsteps of her parents, Mike and Carleen McCornack, a singing-songwriting duo who continue to perform locally, including at the Eugene Saturday Market.

Following graduation from Sheldon and the University of Oregon, her professional aspirations were to become a coach accompanist, working with and playing piano for singers. But that goal changed when she subbed one day for her father’s choir class. He worked as a choir teacher and technology director for more than 20 years in the neighboring Bethel School District.

“He didn’t have anyone to do it, and I fell in love with it,” Perdue said.

She earned her master’s degree in education and taught in Washington state and California before arriving at North Eugene High School in 2010. She moved to Sheldon six years later following the retirement of longtime Sheldon choir teacher Nancy Anderson.

As music curriculum specialist, Perdue is responsible for supporting all students and music teachers in providing equitable access to materials, curriculum implementation, music education advocacy, and professional development. Last year, Perdue worked with elementary curriculum director Erin Gaston to deliver recorders to every fourth grade class at 4J’s 19 elementary schools. Inexpensive and easy to learn, recorders have been the ubiquitous starter instrument for millions of schoolchildren over the decades.

Hearing about a fourth grader unable to play the recorder, traditionally played with two hands, she did her research and connected with an instrument maker from the United Kingdom who shipped over a one-handed recorder.

“I was on fire for it because … that’s my job, to make sure that every student can participate,” she said.

She has worked both with Connected Lane County, a local nonprofit that helps underserved youth with career readiness, to develop additional accessible recorder designs, and a St. Louis-based nonprofit to develop a professional development session for teachers on adaptive music education. In the coming weeks, she’ll deliver to music classrooms across the district kits with many types of adaptive instruments, including modified recorders, castanets and shakers, so that all 4J students can make music together.

“I think of my myself as a bridge builder, between student to student, community to community,” she told Good Morning America during its segment. “Music can teach us so much about connecting with each other as humans.”