Well, heres the rule rundown my kids abide by:
1: The drum should only be without its cover "naked" during competetive performances and halftime shows in great weather.
2: Drums do not touch the ground, period. During games and rehearsals, drums are on stands when not on bodies.
3: No member should attempt to tune or perform maintenance on the equipment unless asked to by an instructor.
4: Drums are to be wrapped and cased when not in use. This includes break periods longer than 1 hour. Once cased, the cases must be stacked top to bottom (1 stack of basses, 1 stack of tenors, and 1 stack of snares) to further discourage wannabes from playing.
5: You and ONLY YOU are to play on or carry your equipment. Should any other player be seen with your equipment, even a drumline member, you will be benched for one week (including performances) and could face being kicked out.

These rules have worked out quite well, anyone who sees our line would agree. 5 year old Yamaha basses, 2 year old Yamaha Tenors and 20(+) year old Stingray snares, all which look brand new. Hope this helps, and congrats on the new stuff!

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Now I just have to wait for them to ship. It's looking like they won't even make it here before the end of marching season.

Ross,

Great rules man!

Ya, Pearl took months to get my drums done and shipped to Columbus Percussion from their Tennessee Factory (Or was it Kentucky?). I wouldn't hold your breath for them to arrive!

They should treat their drums as responsible wind players treat their instruments. They should actually be taking better care of them since they are property of the school.

Example, one of my students dropped his tenors down rather violently one day and got a very stern talking to from one of the band directors. The band director went on to say that he didn't see the wind players throwing their instruments or dropping them on the ground. And he said if it happened again he would have to pay for a new set of tenors and he could throw the original ones all he wanted.

The thing most kids don't realise, because they think "well, I'm not going to be around then anyways.", is that these drums have to last a minimum of 10 years. Stress to them that their drum is JUST like any other instrument. A flute player wouldn't let anyone else play on their instrument, so they shouldn't either.

I'm having a problem with the junior high drummers not taking good care of the pit instruments. (We still have to share pit instruments)They shove papers and pencils in the concert bass and snare. We just got new mallets and one of them took of the head. They like to pick th fuz off of the concert mallet. I don't think they realize that we're not going to be able to get new instruments for a while. I told them that the next time I find something that doesn't belong in the instruments, or destroyed mallets, that they will be in HuGe trouble. They will have to use these instruments when they are in High School. That didn't really stop them. They are just immature junior high kids....

Sounds like a very common problem. I'm sure people like Tom Aungst have created a core of junior high/middle school percussionists in their districts who are mature about taking care of their equipment, however for us mere mortal instructors we have to deal with little smelly bastards who pick the felt off of $50 bass drum mallets and shove random objects into drum vents.

It sounds like you are a high school student? Perhaps you could talk to the BD at the high school about it. If that doesn't do anything perhaps several high school students including yourself could go to the junior high and talk to the BD(s) there. Even better would be high school students sitting down with the middle school students and teaching them how to treat things. They will listen to you and other high school students way before another adult teacher getting down on them.

The best way to combat this issue that I have found is to get those younger kids actively involved with the percussion program. In the district that I'm from (where I now instruct), the middle schoolers had no outlet to drum other than concert band. Considering most of the literature was very sparse for the percussionist, it is common for them to sit and play cards, poke each other, and break stuff. So I have been pushing private lessons and make a point to go down to the middle school every few weeks to work with the percussionists. In addition the 8th graders come up for the high school winter line. Once they see the bigger world drumming they will often have a better appreciation for the thousands of dollars that go into percussion gear. While all of this is happening I constantly reinforce the need to take care of the equipment. And slowly the high school students have begun to help me out with this as well. It has definitely helped.

If you can make all the percussionists 6-12 feel like one big family it really makes a difference.

Give 'em a reason to do something other than break stuff.

Thanks a lot for that one ! I will definately have the HS drumline talk to the little varmints. I just hope they listen this time!!