Deer Lake -
Adam Keats graduated from Elwood High School this past year but find himself voicing concern over the loss of two extracurricular activities he enjoyed as a student.
The 18-year-old was both an active member of the drama society and the student manager of the high school basketball team. He said these two activities are presently no longer offered at Elwood.
"While I was there, Elwood always prided itself on its competition in sports and extracurricular," he said Wednesday. "I heard this year that there were troubles getting teacher volunteers ... Teachers had to take that extra time from home that they would normally give to an extracurricular."
Keats said, even though he is now looking in from the outside, he believes the learning environment will suffer without the option for students to take part in such activities.
"Outside of the learning environment everyone needs to be able to express themselves .... With drama and basketball, you're always getting out and meeting new people. You're going to meet some new friends and show off your athletics, express yourself and have fun while having a learning experience," he said.
According to him the student drama society will be missed on the provincial stage. The high school's past drama group won awards for best production at the regional drama festival in 2007 and 2008 and moved onto the provincial drama festival.
"The last two years, drama was introduced and both years we went onto the provincial drama fest. A lot of people really appreciated our plays."
Allan Skanes, assistant director for human resources at the Western School District said extracurricular activities are volunteer activities by teachers and not tied to staffing levels.
"In the case of Elwood, they've had a very rich history of extracurricular activities and a lot of success in those activities," Skanes said. "Every year what happens with volunteer and extracurricular activities (is) teachers, for a variety of reasons, change their minds and do something different or opt out from helping out from some of those activities," said Skanes.
He said some of these reasons for change might have to do with teachers' family commitments, what teachers choose to be involved in, or a matter of their retirement from the school.
"Every year you get a change in what activities are offered. In the case of Elwood, we are finding out from the school that they are having difficulty offering basketball and drama but there's an additional extracurricular activity being brought on this year: cross-country running. And I guess that kind of speaks to it that it's in continuous change," Skanes said.
He said the school's administration will be trying to get someone to offer the drama and the basketball programs at Elwood, but it will be contingent upon the ability to attract somebody to give up their time.
"We haven't changed the staffing at that school. Last year we put 18 and a half teachers there. And this year we have the same number in there and we're looking at possible more time there, but that may or may not have an effect on extra curricular activities. It's volunteer and teachers change for different reasons," he said.
Skanes said the enrollment at Elwood High School has stayed consistent, with about a half-dozen more students attending this year than last.
"We're very concerned any time we lose any extra curricular activity and try to get people to volunteer for it but we're not always successful," said Skanes.
Keats said a petition is being rotated around the school and public "requesting some sort of solution by the school board like extra teaching units to help resolve the problem for better education and extra-curricular activities."
