Staying true to our Quaker values, members of the Friends Academy community regularly meet to discuss current structures and areas that can be improved. Most recently, the upper school experienced the academic pathways assembly. This is an event for department heads to give the entirety of upper school a quick glimpse at the course descriptions and requirements for the next academic year. Students were excitedly inspecting the list of classes attempting to form a potential perfect schedule before hearing an announcement that would raise heads around the theater. 

Mr. Geha, current director of theater, broke the news that the number of art credits students need to complete would move up from 1 to 1.25 for incoming juniors, and 1 to 1.5 credits for incoming sophomores. Although needing to take one or two more engaging art classes does not sound like something to cause much opposition, it did just that. Students were mainly upset because they had already planned their upper school schedule each year under the assumption that they would finish their art credits by a certain planned point. Now, they would be forced to alter the schedule they had formulated prior, potentially sacrificing a desired class as a result of adapting to this change. 

Mrs. Newitt, a crucial member of the team who made this decision, explained to me why this change was made. She made clear that with the increase of an added course students will be required to take next year, the team wanted to make sure that, “students saw art as one of the possibilities for that,”. While this reasoning is valid, it does not fully explain why students would be forced to take additional art classes instead of being encouraged to in other manners. The answer to my thought was made clear in Mrs. Newitt’s description of art as, “a course that for students provides so many benefits but without a lot of homework”. If art was not the requirement to fill this slot, most students would look for a class that would perhaps make their resume look more impressive with the consequence of an unmanageable workload being added. Echoing Mrs. Newitt’s description, an art class is one that is definitely beneficial, while forcing students to balance out an already heavy workload.

Although frustrating for many, myself included, who would rather take a different class that may not necessarily be rigorous, the schedule committee made a decision that makes sense in the best interest of the majority of students at Friends Academy. Schoolwide changes like this can never necessarily fit each student’s circumstances perfectly. As a community, we are lucky to have a faculty that at least attempts to make a situation better on a regular basis.