By Sydney Sears and Delaney Smith
As students flip through their student planner they may notice an abundance of dates for sports events, but notice a lack of dates for yearly arts events.
“Not having our dates in the planner makes me feel as if our events aren’t as important than the sports,” said women’s choir member junior Bethany Smith.
Arts students shared that they put in a lot of work into their performances and just as much work as student athletes do.
Sports are advertised through the student planner, announcements, and posters throughout the school. The school has trouble printing the arts events’ dates in the planner due to printer deadlines.
“I think that events should be more publicly announced just like the sports are,” said orchestra member sophomore Isabelle Didelot.
Assistant principal Rob Willman was in charge of the student planner until two years ago when assistant principal Joe Voelker took over the responsibility. Willman shared that although they probably need to do a better job of trying to get all of the arts events in the planner, it can be tough to publish specific dates due to printing deadlines for the printer.
“Since sporting events are scheduled at least a year or so in advance, we are able to get them in there fairly easily. The planner is due for the printing company around March, and many of the performing arts dates are not set,” said Willman.
The sports dates are also constructed by just one person, while the arts events are controlled by a larger number of people. Also, sports dates are based on contracts for two to four years, so their dates are already set years in advance, while the dates for the arts can fluctuate, said Willman.
“If someone doesn’t like sports, they might like the arts, but they won’t know arts events are going on because of lack of advertisement, “ said theatre student sophomore Henry Miller.
While Willman explained that they are open to trying to include more arts events in the student planner, there are still complications.
“Keep in mind that there is a lot going on at FC. To put every event into the planner might be impractical and overwhelming,” said Willman.