Despite the strength of the arts programs at Walpole High School (WHS), there is a lack of community support. While multiple state championship titles and skilled athletes within Walpole’s sports programs help bolster support for athletics, the creative side of Walpole has an absence of praise because people’s attention is drawn more towards competitive activities. Even when art students compete in events, awareness about these competitions pales in comparison to that of current events in Walpole athletics — most people know if Walpole won their last football game, but very little know that the orchestra placed silver at its most recent strings competition.
Many art forms at WHS do not have the full support of the community, like theater. The students that participate in theater sacrifice hours of their time after school for months and the lack of encouragement often leads to feelings of disappointment. The drama department is well-stocked: the set design has included carpentry for some time, the department has a rich collection of costumes and the technology behind the shows demonstrates a lot of progress. However, the theater students still dream of higher quality props, costumes and set designs. Realistically, not every student can get an equal budget because some clubs and activities are more expensive than others — quality art requires quantitative funding. While the administration does make a good effort to fund the arts, the community offers aid to arts less than they do sports. As someone who has taken part in musicals and plays in the community for multiple years, senior Samantha Aucella believes that if Walpole supported theater more, a larger number of people would attend the shows and the plays could be more enticing.
“Just because Walpole is such a sports-heavy town, I feel like arts are just kind of overlooked,” Aucella said.
In addition to theater, the music department also feels that they do not have the full support of the Walpole community. String instruments tend to fall out of tune if they are not stored at room temperature. Due to space limitations, the cellos and basses are currently stored by a window and therefore have to be tuned more often. The music practice rooms, intended to be soundproof, actually enhance outside noises; the four rooms share an air vent that carries even the slightest sounds. The outlets in the practice rooms are perfectly in line, creating holes through the walls. The weak soundproofing combined with the holes created by the outlets is notorious for amplifying practicing students’ noise level to an adjacent practice room.
On the other hand, recent investments give hope for the future: the school has invested in a brand new guitar, so the first guitarist in jazz band for a few years will appear at the next concert. The investments have also led to an amplifier better suited to the upright bass instead of an old one with about half as many knobs. Additionally, the current WHS construction plans include an entirely new music wing with climate control and multiple rooms for ensembles. Although the school hopes to address these concerns, current students struggle with the limitations of these spaces.
“[The administration has] made a lot of efforts to try to counter [the imbalance] and show their support in other ways,” WHS band teacher and music department head Timothy Fleming said.
Community members should perpetuate the idea that the same joy from sports can also come from supporting the arts. Moreover, art forms such as photography, dance and creative writing are often forgotten. A majority of the students at WHS are unaware that some of the creative clubs exist because they assume their respective classes are the extent of what WHS has to offer. These assumptions are a big problem because they lead to the clubs being unsupported and forgotten. Without the support of the community, clubs can easily fall away and discontinue. Although the school broadcasts when and where the extracurriculars take place, not many people pay attention, resulting in a lack of participants. There is little to no advocacy for clubs like Dance Company, Creative Writing Club and Photography Club. There are so many kids that feel their clubs are not appreciated enough in the school. In order to counteract the lack of representation, community members can be more engaged in the various clubs by actually participating in them. They can pay more attention to when meetings take place and contribute to the club’s goals. Arts should not be isolated or separated from sports.
