Joan Rosas says educators as early as kindergarten flat-out told him he wasn’t capable. “I got horrible grades,” he said. “I could barely read until eighth grade when I figured out how to teach myself.”

The Inglewood high school sophomore says he received little meaningful support for his learning challenges and, under the circumstances, grew to dislike school. Eventually, he started acting out, trying things like smoking.

Everything began to change when he picked up his older brother’s trombone. At first, he dabbled. Then he met Inglewood high’s band director, Joseph Jauregui – AKA Mr J – who encouraged him to get involved in marching band. A few lessons in and he was sold.

“Now as long as I have band, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever I have to do to stay in school and play,” Rosas, 15, said.

In Inglewood, a suburb in Los Angeles county with plenty of baked-in challenges – higher rates of socioeconomic adversity, community controversy over a spate of school closures and, recently, fear of Ice raids – band might seem like a frivolity. But experts say that for kids like Rosas, it can make all the difference.

“If there’s unpredictability in the school and the community, those can be risk factors in the lives of children,” explains Angela J Narayan, an associate professor of clinical child psychology at the University of Denver who studies adverse and beneficial childhood events. “The ideal is for school to serve as a protective factor, rather than another trauma.”

That resonates with band director Jauregui, who says music was always his protector. He grew up a pastor’s kid in nearby South Gate, a suburb less than 10 miles (16km) from downtown Los Angeles. His parents divorced when he was 16. “Music was always my escape,” he said. Jauregui graduated high school in 2005 and eventually earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music performance from California State University, Los Angeles. He plays the saxophone and flute, but in his formative years he and his music-obsessed friends revered one high school: Inglewood. “We used to sneak into the Inglewood performances because they played the fun stuff,” Jauregui said.

For decades, Inglewood’s band dominated southern California high school competitions under the leadership of director Conrad Hutchinson III, whose father had been a legendary band director at Grambling State University, a historically Black university in Louisiana. Under the elder Hutchinson’s leadership, Grambling became the “world-famed Tiger marching band”. The younger Hutchinson arrived at Inglewood high in 1977 and created a program in that same historically Black college and university (HBCU) style – popular music, impressive choreography and high-stepping footwork – with flags, dancers and twirlers adding to the show. Inglewood high took home the top prize at the nationwide battle of the high school bands multiple times.

But by the time Jauregui, 38, interviewed for a job in February 2021, those glory days had faded beyond institutional memory. The district was flagging under financial difficulties that led to a state takeover in 2012. A revolving door of leadership chain-sawed programs and extracurriculars and an unprecedented number of students fled the district. Then the pandemic.

The pandemic was hard on Jauregui, too. He was completing his teaching credential and substitute teaching in Los Angeles unified school district (LAUSD). Once his credential kicked in, he applied for every teaching position within 25 miles of his home with zero luck – until he got a call from Inglewood. Partway through his job interview, additional administrators joined the discussion, and soon he was offered a position. But not the one he applied for.

“I’d applied for middle school. I wanted to have a personal life,” he said . Yet the chance to step in where Hutchinson III, now an octogenarian, left off was too tempting. “I walked in on the first day and I immediately saw what I was up against. I only had eight kids and they had never performed. Because of the pandemic, they’d only played using method books,” he said. The instruments were broken down. The uniforms were old and smelly. “I immediately wanted to quit,” he admitted.

Jauregui recruited players nonstop – the band now has more than 120 students – and made a wishlist of everything the program needed to succeed. To his astonishment, administrators obliged. “We found a way to get everything, Jauregui said. Once he deems students responsible, they receive a brand-new instrument. “Everyone in the school and the district has supported this program 100%,” he went on.

There were also cultural challenges to conquer.

Jauregui, who is Puerto Rican and played in the University of Southern California’s marching band before transferring to the more affordable Cal State LA, experienced some community pushback because he didn’t attend an HBCU, he said. These days, the community criticism has vanished as the band lives up to its old-school tagline: baddest band in the land.

“Last year was surreal for us. We played everywhere,” Jauregui said. Besides Inglewood’s football games, the band played an NFL half-time, a Snoop Dogg special event, the Kingdom Day parade, a major Teach for America meeting and – the pièce de résistance – the National Independence Day parade in Washington DC, which Jauregui said was bittersweet.

The students fundraised and were thrilled to go to DC. It was the first time many had ever been on an airplane. Yet parade spectators had the audacity to lob jabs at the band, shouting things like: “Governor Newsom actually let you out?” The kids, meanwhile, didn’t flinch. “They were impeccably professional. I was so proud,” Jauregui said.

It’s what the band does for individual kids like Rosas, though, that matters most to Jauregui. “I tell the kids that if you work hard, this is a program that has the potential to literally change your life,” he said.

HBCUs – including Southern University and Jackson State University – have been dropping by Inglewood high, borrowing their practice facilities when they are in town and playing with the high school students. “We’ve developed some very good relationships. Those band directors audition our kids and have even offered scholarships right on the spot,” Jauregui said, adding that recently, he had even had a few families opt in to the school solely because of the band. Last year, every senior in the band was offered a scholarship – a major inspiration for Rosas, who is now trombone section leader and says he aims to earn a scholarship to an HBCU.

“My last report card was all A’s and B’s,” said Rosas. “With band, now college seems possible.”