A group of students from Barrie's Innisdale Secondary School are hoping to get their voices heard and have a popular arts program reinstated.
Grade 11 students Ryan Marshall and Sierra Sunkle recently launched an online petition in an effort to save the south-end school’s visual integrated arts program.
The course is described on the school’s website as a two-credit integrated arts program allowing students to explore connections between visual arts and leadership.
The program, which has been offered at the Little Avenue school for decades, is one the pair say they had applied for and had hopes it would help them learn the skills they would need to pursue careers in the arts after university, as it has for many who signed their petition so far.
“This course has been vital for many artists over the years and we aspire to be able to take this program in order to launch our art careers," said Marshall. "We have many people who have shared their experience in the program and many have compared the program to other university-level programs.
“Sierra found out it was cancelled and she told me and I was freaking out about it, because I have been wanting to do this program since Grade 9,” he added. “I went to go talk to the teachers to see if there was anything I could do ... but they didn’t really have any options for us.”
Upset with the news, the two joined forces to figure out a way they could try to save the beloved program.
“We’d both sent in applications (and) there were about 18 students that had also applied and were waiting to be accepted," Sunkle said. "Then we are told the school cut the program due to budget cuts. We have one art program that runs one semester a year.”
Marshall says he spoke with the school’s principal, who tried to explain the reasoning behind the cut, which he said basically boiled down to less students being enrolled means less funding, since the construction of Maple Ridge Secondary School in the city’s southwest end.
“The amount of courses a school can run is dependent on how many students go to the school,” the student said.
Left with few options, the pair decided to launch their petition, which, in its first two days, received more than 300 signatures. It has now garnered 738 signatures as of late Friday afternoon.
Their hope is to get support from the community, and eventually officials with the Simcoe County District School Board, to possibly reverse the decision and resurrect the program.
Sunkle said they also want Innisdale parents and students to call the school board to "let them know how upset they are about this program being cut."
“It is a community-based program. Even in the rec centre, it has a mural … and our school has a few murals that (students in the program) created,” Marshall added.
The absence of the program, said Sunkle, will ultimately leave a huge gap at the school and in the community.
“It’s the only integrated arts program throughout the (board)," she said. "I feel like once this program is gone, art will continue to deplete ... and more and more art programs will be cut. We just won't have the creative outlet we usually do."
