School Assemblies Nationwide: We Travel to Your State
Quick answer: Yes - Brian and Andre travel across the United States to perform. We are based in New York's Capital Region, we drive to schools throughout the Northeast, and we fly to schools anywhere else in the country. Travel is a real line in a quote rather than a marketing detail, so the honest version is this: a single school in a distant state carries the whole trip, while two or three schools sharing consecutive days each carry a fraction of it. Tell us where you are and we will tell you plainly whether we can make it work.
Where we go
There are 99,073 public schools in the United States, spread across 19,183 school districts and serving 49,269,882 students (NCES, 2024-25). We are two performers. We are not going to pretend we have played all fifty states this year.
What is true: Coast to Coast has been performing in schools since 1995, our regular run covers the Northeast and the Southeast, and we travel outside that for schools and districts that ask. There is no state we will not go to. There are states where the economics only work if you help us build a few days around your booking, and we will say so rather than quote you a number that makes no sense for either of us.
How booking a travelling programme actually works
We are based in New York's Capital Region and we travel to perform. That is not a slogan - it is a scheduling and cost question, and you deserve a straight answer about it before you enquire.
Inside a day's drive of Albany - New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, eastern Pennsylvania - travel barely registers in a quote. We drive, we set up, we go home.
A longer drive or a short flight - the Mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas, Ohio, the Southeast - works best as a two or three day block. One school on its own carries the whole trip; three schools over three days carry a third of it each.
Further out - Texas, Colorado, California, the Pacific Northwest - is a flight with gear, and it only makes sense as a multi-day run. If you are the only school in your state asking, say so early and we will tell you honestly whether we can make the numbers work or whether you are better served by someone local.
The single most useful thing you can do is arrive with a partner school. Two buildings sharing a day, or a district booking several buildings across consecutive days, changes the arithmetic more than any negotiation will. It is the same advice we give schools fifteen minutes from our door.
State guides
Every state runs its own anti-bullying statute, and they differ more than you would expect. Some mandate a specific week. Some require character education by name. Some require instruction in every grade. Some run a single policy for the entire state. We have written a guide for each state in our core corridor, covering what the law actually asks of you, what the school landscape looks like, and what an assembly costs there:
Massachusetts - evidence-based prevention instruction required in every grade.
Connecticut - programs, pricing and the state's safe school climate framework.
New Jersey - the Week of Respect, a statutory week in early October.
New York - the Dignity for All Students Act, curriculum rather than an event.
Pennsylvania - policy review every three years, annual reporting to the Office for Safe Schools.
Rhode Island - one statewide bullying policy that every school follows.
Virginia - character education required by statute.
Maryland - 25 districts statewide, so one district is usually a whole county.
Washington DC - annual staff training and annual reporting to the Mayor.
Delaware - a uniform cyberbullying policy, with discipline funding tied to approval.
That corridor - New England down through the Mid-Atlantic - is where we work most, and it is where travel barely touches your quote. If your state is not on the list, it does not mean we do not come. It means we have not written the guide yet. Ask, and we will do the homework on your state's requirements before we quote you.
What is the same everywhere, and what is not
The programme does not change by state. The Respect Tour, Freedom Within, Rock Out For Reading and Gather Here are the same shows in Georgia as in New Jersey, because what holds a room of eight-year-olds does not vary by state line.
Three things do change:
The compliance hook. New Jersey has a statutory Week of Respect; Georgia ties character education to state funding; Massachusetts requires instruction in every grade. The programme maps onto a different obligation in each state, which matters when you are asking for the money.
The calendar. October is the most contested month almost everywhere. Testing season moves by state. In the Northeast, June is effectively unbookable.
The travel line. The further you are from Albany, the more the trip needs to earn its keep.
What an assembly can and cannot do - anywhere
This does not change by state, so we will say it once. The US Department of Health and Human Services is explicit that effective bullying prevention is a whole-school approach sustained over time, not an event. An assembly with nothing before or after it is an hour of entertainment.
What has strong evidence behind it is the programme around the assembly. Durlak and colleagues reviewed 213 school-based social and emotional learning programmes covering 270,034 students and found an 11-percentile-point gain in academic achievement, alongside improvements in behaviour and attitudes toward school. The assembly's job is to launch and reinforce that work: one shared vocabulary, delivered to everyone on the same morning, in a form children remember.
For scale, about 19 percent of students aged 12-18 reported being bullied at school in 2021-22, down from 28 percent in 2010-11 (NCES). Improving, still one child in five.
Who pays for it
Three lines, and most schools only know about one.
Title IV-A. Districts receiving $30,000 or more must spend at least 20 percent on Safe and Healthy Students and at least 20 percent on Well-Rounded Education (US Department of Education). Anti-bullying and character programming sits in the first bucket; music and arts in the second. Ask your district's federal programs coordinator - this is the most underused route in the country.
State and district safety or climate budgets. Most districts hold a small line for climate programming that building principals do not know exists. Ask student services directly.
PTO or PTA. Fast and flexible, and it should be your top-up rather than your foundation. PTA fundraising ideas for assemblies covers the approaches that work.
Grant routes are listed in grants and funding for school assemblies.
Four questions to ask any provider
Do you split by grade band, or is it one K-5 show? Split is better above about 400 students.
Do you bring your own sound? They should, and setup is about forty-five minutes either way.
What do teachers get for Monday? If the answer is nothing, keep looking.
What will this programme not do? Anyone who says 'nothing' is selling.
The longer version, including how to price per student and what to check in the contract, is in how to choose the right school assembly program.
When you should book someone local instead
We would rather tell you this than waste your time. Book locally if your budget only covers one assembly and travel would eat a third of it; if you need a date inside two weeks and you are more than a drive away; or if what you actually need is somebody who can come back four times this year, which is a real advantage a local performer has over us in most of the country.
Book us if you want a live music programme that works in a mixed K-5 room, you can help build a two or three day block, or you are in the Northeast where we are already coming anyway. Our comparison of anti-bullying assembly formats is honest about where other kinds of programme beat ours.
Frequently asked questions
Do Brian and Andre really travel nationwide?
Yes. We are based in New York's Capital Region and drive throughout the Northeast; for schools further afield we fly. There is no state we refuse. What varies is how many days we need to make the trip viable.
How far in advance should an out-of-state school book?
Further than a local one. Three to six months if you want a specific week, because a distant booking has to be slotted into a run rather than dropped into a gap. October fills first everywhere.
Can our district book several buildings?
That is the arrangement that works best, especially at distance. Consecutive days across several schools spreads the travel and means every child in the district hears the same message in the same week.
Do you charge travel separately?
Tell us where you are and what dates you are considering and you will get a straight number that includes it. We would rather quote honestly than advertise a low fee and add travel later.
What about a residency rather than a one-off?
A songwriting residency has students write and record their own song over several days. At distance it is often the better value, because the travel is spread across days that are all doing work.
Next steps
Tell us your state, your building, your grade bands and the dates you are considering - and whether there is a neighbouring school or another building in your district that might share the days. That last detail changes what we can offer more than anything else. Start on the booking page or contact us directly.
References
National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, Table 2, school year 2024-25 - schools, districts and student membership by state.
StopBullying.gov, Bullying prevention at school - US Department of Health and Human Services.
National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Facts: Bullying.
Durlak et al. (2011), The Impact of Enhancing Students' Social and Emotional Learning, Child Development.
US Department of Education, Student Support and Academic Enrichment (Title IV, Part A).
Written by Brian, Coast to Coast School Assemblies. We perform character education, anti-bullying, mindfulness and music assemblies in schools across the United States - from our home base in New York's Capital Region to any state that will have us.
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