My stupid, stupid, screwed-up High School.

The BBQ Pit
1

Before I start this, let me put out this disclaimer: I have NOTHING against sports. I played three sports in middle school. However, when I got to high school, there were two choices available:

  1. Be an academic artiste.
  2. Be an academic athlete.
    I chose the first one. However, one of my best friends is a football player. So, I have nothing against sports.

That said, let me launch into my tirade.
Every single year, my high school spends hundreds to thousands of dollars for the upkeep of the baseball field and the football field. Watering, manpower, etc.
However, we also have a band program, a choir program, girl’s sports teams, and a budding drama program.
If you are in band, you have to pay 25 dollars, plus pay for your own instrument repairs. If you play a school owned instrument (such as tubas, oboes, bassoons) you pay an extra 25 dollar rental fee.
Choir students must pay for their own 160 dollar uniform.
Drama students are expected either to rent or furnish their own costumes.
The band has to do extensive fundraising each year to get money to run the program on. All of the school owned instruments are at least 30 years old, some are almost 60.
The girls teams also have to do extreme fundraising…they sell candy to school students. I always, ALWAYS buy from all of them if I can. They also sell several other things, which I have forgotten.
However, the football team and baseball team get a free ride. They don’t have to sell anything, everything is provided. They get all the publicity. In fact, both teams, on game days, get out of school 2 hours before the game to “rest” and “eat”. Their grades are handed to them.
If it’s not the biggest crock, I don’t know WHAT is.
I am aware this happens in other schools, and I completely sympathize. I just had to get this off of my chest.

2

It may not be your school, per se. A lot of businesses donate schools specifically for a sports team. When I was in high school, we got new uniforms (boys lacrosse) from some local business of other.

But yeah, that sucks guy.

3

Also, “sports” tends to bring in more spectators than “glee club”. More spectators = more money…

However, I realize what you mean. My High School was the same until a few years ago, when the Drama program took over. How? Well, we had a very good director… and, in addition, the Drama department made a LOT of money from it’s shows (we REALLY took off when we produced “Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story”).

Still, we managed to do that without any money from the school… so I guess if you’re not emulating the most popular sport in America, you get diddly (no pun intended) squat.

4

This is the opposite at my former high school. Over there, it’s the band members that get the “free ride” because there was some law that said it was unfair for poor students who wants to be in band to pay all the fees. After that, the school district had to pay for all the band expenses. As for the football and baseball team, as well as the rest of the sports teams in the school, the players have to go out and do the fundraising and donate money for their teams.

And what’s wrong with that? It’s not like it takes 5 minutes to get all your equipment on, warm up, and go over the gameplan. And don’t forget about traveling to the opponent’s field.

How?

5

[soapbox]
It definiately sucks. And, music and creative arts are usually the first thing to be cut in budget haggles.

College isn’t any better, with lots of athletic scholarships, even some for women, begrudgingly, after Title IX. Dang near nothing for musicians, actors, writers, poets, etc. The perennial story is that “sports develops teamwork and prepares you for life.” The people that repeat this mantra have never participated in any kind of musical ensemble and have no perception of the teamwork it inspires. And giving someone everything from clothing to tuition to cars does not prepare them for life.

But, look at it this way. You get to participate in something that makes you smarter. You get to do something you passionately enjoy. You get training in something that will help you both during the 8-hour work day and the 16 hours you are not at work but when most of your real life happens. You get fantastic aerobic exercise all year and increased breathing efficiency, especially if you march during football season.

Since you are used to working for what you want, you are the one better prepared for life. You have a healthier attitude. You’re more creative and happier.

I will offer a recommendation, though. If you proceed to college, and you enter a program other than music, many counselors will discourage you from just about anything not related to your major. They will tell you that Band or Choir or Glee Club or Art or Basket Weaving is a waste of your time and will cause you to burn out or fail. It takes too much time.

In a word, bullshit. Hang around the music school, see what they offer, and show up without signing up if you have to. Most schools offer Marching and Symphonic band classes that are mostly non-music majors.

After you get out of school, and start working, ask around your community. Most larger areas will have at least one community band or chorus. Go to a concert or two, and see if their style and choice of music is to your taste, then join in a group that you enjoy. Additional opportunities for performing will usually present themselves.

Don’t let go of what you enjoy. It’s much too important.
[/soapbox]
IMHO, anyway.

6

I don’t care about them getting off for away games. What bothers me is the football game starts at 7. They have to be there at 5:30.
Yet, they get out of school anywhere from 9:30-11:30.
It just plain sucks.

7

There’s no reason they should get out early. I played lacrosse through high school and we never got out of school early to “prepare”. And we made it to the division final. That’s absurd; it’s an * extracurricular * activity.

8

I had a similar situation at my HS with the girls vs. boys sports thing. It was especially bad because the girls went to state for basketball, soccer, volleyball, & softball, and the boys lost at everything. I was on the staff of the hs newspaper, and I wrote a really embarrassing editorial pointing out that all the awards & pep rallies were all for boys’ sports. Wouldn’t you know that they started having pep rallies for the girls sports the same month. They also made girls eligible for the awards also. It’s an idea. You could also start a petition that all extra-curricular activities be treated equally and present it to the school board. Does anyone know if Title IX applys to HS?

9

As a band member, you probably don’t have any recourse, but the girls’ sports teams should be protected by Title 9. I’m surprised no one has made a stink about it yet.

10

If I remember correctly, title 9 only applies to those institutions that recieve federal funding. In many states the secondary schools recieve their funds from local and state taxes so that title nine wouldn’t apply.

11

I consider myself an actress, as do many of the people in my school. Every other year, we put on a musical. Now, I took this mini-course at the end of last year that taught those who were interested all of the budgeting, casting, production, and crew stuff that goes on when a school decided to put a musical together.
The budget we have for the musical is a mere $3,200. Now, this may seem like a lot, but I got to an all-girls school, which means we have to hire guys to play the male leads (having teachers play romantic leads is creepy, to say the least). That’s about $1000 right there, if your lucky and the guys are cheap <evil grin>.
Then there’s the band. We do have a band program where students can play their instruments, but that has an even lower budget and not too much talent (sorry guys!) another $1000 for the band.
What else goes into a production? Well, there’s costumes, makeup, and set, for one thing. And if you want all that stuff to be good, well, we’re already over budget.

The sports teams, however, have more than enough money. All of them (Soccer, tennis, softball, lacrosse, and field hockey) for both the middle and upper schools, have recently purchased new uniforms. The girls who play sports, however, are always complaining about how their uniforms are old and icky.

This is not to mention the fact that our school just underwent this remodeling phase and they’re making a bigger gym, bigger lockers and bigger classrooms. You know what they don’t touch, that despiratly needs to be bigger? The wing space in our auditorium!

And, the icing on the cake, our director has left.
She was the best thing that happend to the music departement in our school and she was the best thing that happened to us. Now we’re going to have to deal with a budget cut AND a green new director!

<sigh> Well, I’m done. Just felt like ranting a bit about the injustices of the Arts vs Sports case.
Peace out, y’all!
TA!

12

Deiket, I say this as someone whose high school was up until seven or so years ago, all-male.

What you do is not hire male actors but get the local male school to co-put on shows. Then you have some performances at their school and some at yours. This way you get to meet lots of guys, and since they’re presumably at an all-guy school, you get lots from whom to choose. Nice, no? :slight_smile:

I was “fortunate” enough to go to a school where it was possible to do both glee club/madrigals AND be on the football, baseball team etc. Football got entirely too much attention, IMO. Then again, for part of the year glee club was larger than the football team (300 students at the school . . . half female), so that was nice. And I can attest to the instrument bit. Students supplied their own. For football we didn’t supply our own pads. Then again, the hockey team paid for their own stuff (skates and sticks).

Fortunately I’m separated enough from that situation that I don’t have to think about how sports are entirely too over-played (read: too much attention paid them) and academics and music stuff don’t get nearly enough attention. Anyway. Sorry for the hijack.

13

My principal never spoke to me for the last year. Why? Well, for french class we developed this wonderful, funny, over-the-top farce of Jack in the Beanstalk. I was the cow, which was a major role the way we wrote it. It was funny, it was creative, it won an award at our Foreign Language District “convention.” So we wanted to go to the State version of the same convention and do it there. Our principal says no, we’d miss a whole day of school to do it. Now mind you, we were all college-bound kids, kids willing to stick with a foreign language through four years even though easier classes were available. My mom hit the fucking roof. She was a teacher and she knew how much school athletes miss. So she and my dad wrote a letter about it, and cc’ed the superintendent. She said it was a pretty sad message they were sending us. I think it embarrassed the principal, and the bastard never let anything good come my way again.

Anyway, we also had a brouhaha about lettering. A few of my thespian friends thought we ought to be able to “letter” in theatre given the hours we spent on it. Some of the jocks said no way because we didn’t “compete” like they did. Of course, they had no idea that we not only compete for roles, we also take one-acts to state and district meets every year. I guess you don’t read about that when you’re reading only the sports page. It wasn’t a big issue for me personally, but their ignorance was laughable. One of my buddies wrote a guest editorial for the school paper about it. Instead of the usual disclaimer that “opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the paper,” the student editors printed something like “These opinions do NOT in any way reflect OUR VIEWS!!!” Nice.

High school bites. College is better.

14

Virtually any pro athlete who “graduated” from a college, doesn’t know anything. Even those who go back after they’ve turned pro. Universities (even public) literally hand grades to those who are bringing in dough and prestige to the school. It is common knowledge. My advice: Play a sport that makes money. Problem solved!!

15

At my high school, the recent remodlings included not only a new gym, but choir and band rooms, and a really nice auditorium/production area. The band and drama members still have to do lots of fundraiders while the sports teams do not, but at least the school gave us bew facillities.

16

Nocturne – nice rant. However, in the future, try a few paragraph breaks. It would make your points more clear.

Okay, okay! I just had to put on my “English teacher hat” for just a moment. Anyway; that is a way a few schools are. Not all, but some.

Sports get a lot of attention because there are a lot of parents and local business behind them. That’s just people “living out” through these kids. Also, a lot of folks see sports as a way to keep “kids off drugs”. Dunno about YOU but in my HS the best dope was held by the football team. And a lot of the biggest dopes were on the football team, but I digress…

In the school I went to it was similar in that the male sports got more donations and attention. The female sports didn’t get hardly any attention or support until these women went out and pounded the pavement and MADE it happen.

Seems to me that other posters have had a similar experience. They had to fight to make things change.

Also, you need to understand how budgets and grants and other school funding works. I was dismayed when my HS spent thousands on new carpet when we desperately needed books; the fact of the matter was they had received a special “grant” to upgrade the facilities. They had no choice but to spend the money that way. It’s weird and wrong but that is the way some budgets run.

17

YOu think that’s bad?
My high school was constantly buying new sports equipment and fancy lighting for the stadium, while we had textbooks for world geography that were old before the Soviet Union collapsed!
It was pathetic!

18

I was in my high school orchestra and we thought the band and choir had it pretty sweet. Before concerts, the bands would meet in one of the music rooms, the choirs would meet in the other, and the orchestra met in the hall in between. The band got uniforms. The band got to go to parades. The football team had it better still, but the band was not the bottom of the pecking order.

The story of my life, I don’t even fit in with the fringe.

19

This is a gross exaggeration. This only happens to SOME athletes at SOME schools, and almost NEVER at schools below Division I (schools like Florida, Nebraska, etc.)

I know what the OP’s talking about. I played football and did theater both at my HS. My junior year was the first year my HS ever made the playoffs in football, but I had already committed to be in a play. If the season had not gone past 11 games (we went to the second round) there would’ve been no problem. Needless to say, I did NOT miss the game, although I would’ve. I wasn’t allowed to. It was unthinkable.

Our sports teams weren’t given a totally free ride, but if there was any money for sports, it went to football and boys basketball first, girls b-ball second. In retrospect, this does bother me some, but it was a poor, downtroddeen area I grew up in. The football team doing well was just about the only thing people had to take pride in. I can understand the misplaced priorities, even while acknowledging it was unfair. This isn’t the case everywhere though.