I just attended a special, additional meeting of the Winchendon School Committee, which ran for two hours and was entirely devoted to the winter intramural sports program, which the School Committee had voted down at their regular meeting last week. Athletic Director Jenna Whitaker has now given, I think, four [very] long and meticulously detailed PowerPoint presentations explaining all the protocols and policies that will be followed by the teams playing school sports in the age of COVID (and which have a hefty price tag). At tonight's meeting, winter sports was approved by the School Committee, just barely: 3 yes, 1 no and 1 abstention.

I'm all for having the students play sports. I want to say that right up front. But after sitting through all these presentations--and Ms. Whitaker will be giving updates at every single future School Committee meeting--I perceive a rather glaring...imbalance, in all of this time and energy and attention that the School Committee and the principals are lavishing on school sports.

Not once--since some eloquent pleas last summer following the massive layoffs of school staff (some of them reinstated but not all)--not once has anyone publicly spoken up for music, art and theatre in the Winchendon Schools. If there are music, art or theatre classes and activities happening, no one is talking about them.

Sports are clearly very important to the students who play on teams. But only a minority of Winchendon students play sports. Who is speaking up for the students to whom art, music and theatre are just as vitally important--the students whose mental and emotional health depends on their being able to nurture that creative flame in their souls? When does their champion get ninety minutes of the School Committee's undivided attention to talk about ways to make those programs and classes work during a pandemic? Where is the funding to support their safety or technical needs? Where are the parents standing up for their artistic and musical children, and who is going around with petitions collecting signatures supporting art and music in the schools?

Winchendon has the Winchendon Music Festival, Winchendon Winds, an annual concert series in GAR Park, the GALA gallery, a thriving dance school, and now the Robinson Broadhurst Foundation is building a $3 million open-air amphitheatre in Winchendon Community Park as a free gift to the town. Where is all the talent to fill these venues going to come from...when the Winchendon Schools act like the arts are just expendable fluffy electives that don't really matter?

It didn't use to be this way in Winchendon.

A couple of decades ago, Murdock High School had such a strong music program that the Murdock High School Band participated in state-wide competitions, and won awards. The plaques are hanging up in the high school music offices, gathering dust. They're hanging over large file cabinets stuffed full of music--music which represents a substantial monetary investment. The schools own professional band and orchestra equipment, including a full set of timpani. Google what those cost.

Murdock High School students participated in the state-wide One Act Play Competitions. When the new school was built in the 1990s, it was built with a full music room and a professional-caliber stage and auditorium, such as many school districts could only dream of having. When it came to the arts, Winchendon Schools put its money where its heart was.

But those days are long gone. When the school override failed in 2017, among the first heads to roll were the new instrumental music teacher and other art and music staff. Winchendon barely even has an instrumental music program. They have a good chorus program, and they put on really fun musicals. Does anyone miss them?

Even the weekly video news show the Murdock High students used to put on YouTube, "Blue Devil Weekly," has been on hiatus since spring. Why? That could be produced entirely remotely! Where is their support?

I know that everyone in the school district is dealing with the nightmare of this pandemic every day. It must feel like they can't win no matter what they do. I wouldn't even be asking these questions, if I hadn't been watching as so much extra effort was being made for sports. Do our students really thrive when school is reduced to hard academics, intramural sports and nothing else?

At least someone on the School Committee should say something about it. We can't go to concerts, we can't go to theatres, we can't play music with other people, we aren't even supposed to sing in church. Isn't the loss of art, music and theatre as a great a grief to our students as the loss of sports?

Does anyone else in Winchendon think so besides me?

Inanna Arthen