Unified arts requirement comes under scrutiny amid budget cuts and student concerns
The Guidance Office at Walpole High School has been recently barraged with scheduling conflicts from disgruntled juniors who are struggling to meet the graduation requirements concerning unified arts. The main source of the student body’s frustration surrounding the required two years of unified arts comes from the Class of 2010 because they are setting up their senior year course loads and many, for one reason or another, are having to change their schedules to meet this requirement.
An anonymous survey with questions about students’ scheduling concerns was distributed to a range of different students in the Junior class. The majority of the students responded that they had not been informed of this particular graduation requirement until last year. However, both Principal Bernstein and Mrs. Allison Wilson, one of Walpole High’s guidance counselors, say that every member of the student body has been informed of all of the graduation requirements by the student handbook which is given out to students every year. Again, the students disagree; one student said that her choice not to take unified arts classes seemed only to be “a possible problem. . . [and her] guidance counselor said that [the student] could either alter her schedule or hope for the best”. Students who had hoped that this requirement would be waived have been sadly mistaken and both Guidance and the Administration view the students as responsible for ignoring the requirement.
Once one looks beyond the finger pointing, a greater issue arises: due to being outdated or due to budget cuts, the Unified Arts Department may be in for a change. With the potential budget cuts for the 2009-2010 school year on the horizon, Bernstein says that more classes may count as unified arts so that students have plenty of options available to them to fill the requirement. However, budgetary concerns aside, the school may need to reevaluate its values and take a look at the graduation requirements, particularly the one involving unified arts classes. Bernstein said, that “Film, T.V. Production, and Creative Writing at least should be included in the category of unified arts because students produce pieces of art in these classes more so than in classes like Accounting that are also found in this category.” Mrs. Wilson also mentioned that certain members of the Guidance Department would look favorably on a reallocation of what courses are included in the Unified Arts Department. Presently this department contains classes from the Art and Music Departments and others headed by Mr. Neubauer like Family Living, Computer Keyboarding, and Robotics.
Students will be pleased to hear that both the Guidance Department and the administration feel this way because students presented rather similar solutions to their scheduling conflicts. One student said that “the graduation requirements . . . are outdated and need to incorporate the new classes like Film and T.V. Production. The way the requirements are now, they restrict students because not all kids want to take art or computer classes — it’s a waste of time.” Many of those facing problems with their senior schedules took one of the following for at least one of their three years in high school: Film, T.V. Production, Journalism, or Latin. These students feel either that they are being penalized for their interests in other art forms that do not qualify or because of the fact that, though Latin is a language, it had been qualified as a unified art for many years.
Even those students who have easily fulfilled the requirement with interests in art or music feel strongly about this issue: another student said, “I believe the only solution for how the school can correct this problem is to allow the obvious classes, T.V. Production, Film, and Journalism, to be considered unified arts.” Some of these students may be the cause of their own problems by avoiding the requirements but others who have taken seven academic classes or academic electives feel that they must put aside their passions like Latin in order to take the unified arts classes. Though Guidance believes that the present requirements align with what colleges are looking for, one student expressed concern that she would not be able to take courses like AP Latin and AP Euro because she is now going to have to take unified arts classes. Clearly the students are crying for change to the system, but it remains to be seen whether the unified arts requirement will be eliminated or the department will be altered.
There are always two sides to every story: a few of the students responded to the survey by saying that they were made aware of the graduation requirements “freshman year, again in sophomore year, and once more junior year” and another said that these unified arts classes “actually allowed [him]to take some more interesting courses that exposed [him] to art-related courses.” Also there is a group, however silent, that lacks pity for their peers who did not bother to read the student handbook or chose to ignore the requirements.
The Administration and the Guidance Department will work closely together in order to help students as much as possible, even those who hoped that certain requirements would be gone by the time they reached their senior year or those who hoped to fight the system.
Ultimately, the decision to bypass graduation requirements is left up to the school committee and any changes to the requirements will not be retroactive.
