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Home » Faculty/Staff Directory » Faculty Profile » Robbin Johnston
Robbin Johnston
  • Educational Specialist/Leadership & Supervision - Austin Peay State University
  • Master of Music/Instrumental Conducting Performance - Austin Peay State University
  • Bachelors of Science/Music Education - West Virginia Institute of Technology (WVU)

Mrs. Johnston is originally from Glen Burnie, Maryland and began her music education as a violinist in the Anne Arundel County school system. Her family moved to southern West Virginia in 1978 where she completed her public school education at Independence High School in Coal City, West Virginia in 1982.  She attended West Virginia Institute of Technology (WVU) in Montgomery, West Virginia as a clarinet major and graduated summa cum laude with her Bachelor's of Science in Music Education in May 1986.

Her first teaching position was the Director of Bands at Trap Hill Middle School in Surveyor, West Virginia from 1986 to 1989. Upon her husband, Jeff's, assignment to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Army Band at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, she accepted the position of Director of Bands at Greenwood Middle School in Clarksville, Tennessee in 1989. In 1990, she transferred to Northeast Middle School as the Director of Bands and remained there until 1995.  From 1995 to 2021, she served in the position of Director of Instrumental Music at Clarksville High School and is an active music educator in local, state, and national organizations. She retired from public school service in May of 2021 with 35 years experience in music education.

My work fostering music education in Tennessee has included serving on the state of Tennessee Standards Writing Committee as the Instrumental Standards Writer for grades 9-12. The new standards work began in 2016 and continued through the implementation phase during the 2018/19 school year. In the spring of 2018, I served as the Subject Matter Expert in Music for the 2018 state implementation of the new Fine Arts Standards. I have also worked as a Music Training Facilitator and Standards Trainer for the music standards implementation process throughout the summer of 2018. My latest work in the state has been as a member of the committee working to implement a Dual Music Credit state curriculum for high school students.
Mrs. Johnston's field study, The Effects of Block Scheduling on Instrumental Music Programs in Tennessee was published in 2006.