Letter of the Week: Boost funding for school arts

Don’t get me wrong, I like sports as much as the next high-schooler.

But when it comes to funding fine arts, I think school districts need to get their priorities straight.

I am a junior at Liberty High School and I’m involved in theater and orchestra.

We have one of the best programs in the state. However, Liberty High School has one theater, and some people don’t even really consider it to be a theater. Its name is the “Large Group Instruction Room,” which is fine if the large group is fewer than 250 people.

What I’m trying to get to is this: Why build a field house, a third gym, when more money could come into our award-winning theater productions with a bigger, better theater?

Sports are important. But often funding for fine arts gets left in the construction dust.

Cecelia Cook, 16, was born in Blue Springs and has lived in Liberty most of her life with her 13-year-old brother, Scott, and parents, Carl Cook and Kayl Soukup. She is the principal violist with the Youth Symphony of Kansas City and was selected for the Missouri All-State Orchestra.

This story was originally published January 25, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Letter of the Week: Boost funding for school arts."