What do you think???

[DCdisco]

What are your thoughts on this topic? This should be good, considering that about 99% of us (cept like, MushashiMyamoto) are forensicators.....and are all subject to this.

[Josiahzacks]

Im not really sure that the FOL community can produce anything approaching an unbiased and accurate response to this question, seeing as we all participate in these activities.

[Megan]

Well...........I'm also an athlete, and I still think that funding for the arts needs to increase. As an athlete, I see how much we get in porportion to the fine arts, and it's quite unbalanced.

[MovieStar1084]

I'm biased, I'll admit it. But there are a few "unfair" factors in my school and community. I go to a school of a whopping 1800 people (every other school in our area is above 4000...) and football is not only a major school sport, but a major community event. Homecoming has the place PACKED and it's mostly old people and families with little kids who are years away from High School. Football rakes it in cash-wise, and they get to keep almost all of the proceeds. Not to mention their huge budget.

Now Friendswood isn't the richest school because there is ZERO industry in the town. It's a "bedroom town" - people live here, work elsewhere. Next year we get more budget cuts, and the programs that suffer the most are the fine arts programs. Sports are just fine. Not to mention they have all those extra ways to get cash.

But our forensics team? We have almost zero budget to begin with, and now it's even worse. Our principal won't let us take donations, etc... and has us doing fundraisers against the Wranglerettes Cookie Dough and Hosa's suckers. We never stand a chance. Sure, there are little things we can do here and there, but it isn't enough to let us go to more than about 8 tournaments a year... if we limit people going at certain tournaments. Next year the novices will have to be limited to the amount of tournaments (even though that is how they learn and get better) so the Varsity will have a better chance at state and MAYBE fit in 8 tournaments...

ok, lol... this is very rant-like. nevertheless, it is really upsetting to see my department suffer so much, especially when we do better than our football team AND our basketball team COMBINED.

[FunkyChicken]

What surprises me is that this bias happens everywhere--even in schools with more than aquedate funding. Though I go to a pretty freaking rich school, I'll admit that yes, the athletics department gets substantially more funding than the arts department. Consider that Milton--with its own money!--has built two gyms, one Uber-Big Athletic Center, a large track, a hockey rink, a squash court (who plays squash???) and countless playing fields; wheras the performing arts center was donated and probably wouldn't have even existed had it not been for Stephen King (but that's a different story), and the visual arts are banished to trailers. The speech team does a lot better than the basketball team (who lost every game this season), and yet B-ball gets a coach bus to go to all their games and Speech has to cut people from the entry list to even get a bus. So ditto, Moviestar. Fundraising bites.

[Josiahzacks]

Tina- shut up, you're theater building is beautiful and you guys get to go to harvard/yale/glenbrooks/villiger etc.:roll:

Our school has a very similar problem to moviestars's. Too much football (I graduate this year and they havn't lost while I've been here) and not enough theater or arts. WE dont even get to go to districts b/c, if we qualify, there's no $$ to send us and personal contributions arn't allowed.

man, public school sucks.

[Ryan]

Doesn't it cost like $30,000 a year to go to Milton?

[This is not Jenn]

I think forensics should get free strippers and Girl Scout cookies.

At my school everything is equally poor.

[ria]

our principal, mr. weaver, is a really cool guy. he's helped the speech team a lot, but it's still not very much. after we told him about regions, and how we won this year for the twelfth year in a row, and he wanted to have a pep rally for us. none of us wanted one, (i mean, what are we gonna do, have the cheerleaders do a routine? yeah, right), but we still wanted to do something. mr. weaver was all for it, pretty much said "decide what you want, we'll do it." but in the end, we didn't even get a spirit day. lasure didn't want to organize anything else, his seniors were very "blah, do we have to?" about it, and he didn't want that attitude. that's understandable, but when i asked him about a spirit day, he said "nope. my people (meaning speechies) won't wear them (meaning our speech team shirts). if i'm going to have to fight them for it, i'm not gonna fool with it." i think that's ridiculous. if he says "speech team gets a spirit day and you have to wear your team shirts," they'll either wear the **** shirt or stay in uniform. that way, those of us who want to, which actually would be most of us, can get some kind of small reward, and the others are all just stupid.

yeah, i'm ranting too, but i care so much about speech. nobody can really understand how much this means to me, and i hate seeing something that i care so very much about just be shunned like this.

[ria]

oh, and by the way, sports teams have so much other income w/out the school's help. people actually pay to come to their tournaments and watch. i don't even want to think about how much money they make off that alone. they could probably get by just fine w/out hardly any school funding. if they threw those funds into speech team, we might actually be able to take a bus to tournaments. that's right, ladies and gentlemen, complain all you want about having to cut your entries to fit on the bus, but we don't even get one. our team has to carpool, so we rarely arrive as a team, we have to rely on the parents judging to drive us, and they don't even get reimbursed for the gas money. once, just once, i would like our team to get to go on a bus, so that we can all be together on the ride, power-talk to those who are nervous, cheer up those who are down, and generally all just be together. and when we pull into the parking lot, people will say "oh crap, i didn't know bethlehem was gonna be here!" and we can walk in together, as a whole team, with our heads held high knowing that we're all there together. the family-like quality is 9/10 of speech, but what good is it if you only see three or four of them at a time?

[FunkyChicken]

Doesn't it cost like $30,000 a year to go to Milton?

yep. i love scholarships. They make 7000 dollars go a long way.

I love my school. i just don't like how the Administration puts the needs of the athletes twenty gazillion miles over the needs of the arts department.

[ria]

they're all a bunch of stupidheads.

[veronica]

our school gives us some funding..but we get money from putting on plays and fundraisers. Our music department just finsihed our musical Annie and they collected$4000, which is ok for the size of our school and our community. Then again they where $3000 in the hole to begin with.

[TNHIDancer]

I am somewhat double sided on this. As I find it disappointing that my school recently got a $1million grant and all of the money went to the baseball field, I also say, "Hey. They were #2 in the nation and the donor was a baseball playing alumni at my school."

I do find it unfair that while our baseball field is perfectly manicured year round, as well as the football field, and that the marching band can not practice on the football field for fear that they will "tear it up". This seems to make no sense since the band marches on it on fridays anywho. (Besides I'd worry more about a 300lb porker in cleats tearing up the field than i would a 125 pound band kid with a tuba.)

But alas, my rant is not about band kids, or football its about funding. This is the way I see it. I am from the south and the two biggest things to do on a Friday night are as follows
1) Go to your schools football game decked out in body paint head to toe in your schools color.
2) After the game preceed to *insert name here's* house. At *name's* home get plastered.

Now I do not condone the activities listed above, but in a school of 3000 you can imagine many do. So since about 500 attend each football game...ticket charge of $5. The team is making a lot of money when you add in concessions. In this instance, the funding for our sports team is not coming from the school. In fact, our sports program receives the same amount of funding that our fine arts do $500 a year.

Self-sufficiency is the key here. If you want to keep the program alive, make it worth it. In order for our forensics team to stay together, we hold an annual meet as a fund raiser. Band sells fruit and pizza.

So all in all I suppose my final answer is, if the students care about the program, they will strive to keep it up. Provide your own funds, or give everyone a set amount per student.

[HSTDeb8erGrl]

I don't know about your schools, but at mine we have an outstanding arts program. And since a select few of our students are in the arts and humanities activities, our school covers the majority of our expenses, from airfare to hotels. I guess we are pretty lucky.

[Megan]

You are.

[cali418]

We were lucky this year. Our State tournament was at our school, so as it was a three day tournament, many people stayed in the hotels, went to the mall, movies, stores, etc. and brought in a whole lot of money, so the team is really getting looked at. Plus, our coach is awesome, and doesn't take no for an answer. So we've kind of had our fair share.