MANAGING PERSPECTIVE: Students deserve a new lease on education

February 8, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

This weekend, after a legal battle to keep their show on stage, students at Green Valley High School closed a stunning run of a controversial musical about living and loving through AIDS and drug addiction.

It would be a damn shame if they can’t pay this year’s rent.

For the past two weekends, a high school stage was home to a lesbian couple dealing with feelings of jealousy; a drug addict, a guitarist and a gay couple, all of whom have HIV, and a film producer torn between following art and having food to eat.

When I took my seat in the GVHS Theater on Friday, I was prepared for a tragically toned-down, “school-appropriate” version of “Rent.” I knew the director, cast and crew had been through trouble with parents who tried to legally remove the program from this year’s list of plays citing inappropriate material, so I didn’t figure the show would be too daring.

A few scenes in, however, I was shocked and thrilled to see a brilliantly cast Armando Ronconi playing the drag queen Angel, with a sense of importance of his role that spoke of maturity far beyond his years.

The cast was full of students who recognized what they were doing – changing the face of high school arts in Las Vegas and deeply impacting their peers, parents and society.

Ronconi says he has received nothing but praise and admiration for his choice to play the role – a response that, coming from American teenagers, is a breath of fresh air.

The arts in Las Vegas’ K-12 schools are breaking barriers.

It would be a travesty to kill this young movement toward liberal education in the arts with a short-sighted cut in state funding.

We all know the arts would be the first to go. Of course it is one of the worst things a government could do for its schools, but history is against us. And coming from a governor who is so deluded as to think eliminating the viability of a college education from his state is the best way to preserve Nevada’s future, it is doubtful a decision to cut money for K-12 schools would preserve this most sacred endeavor.

Still, there is hope.

If a cast of teenagers can stand up for right against the threats of parents and the law, there is hope.

If a 16-year-old can learn the value of tolerance, there is hope.

If high schooler’s voice can inspire her peers to believe they are all equal, there is hope.

As long as there are teaches who will fight to the end to show their students that art can change the world, there is hope.

But hope alone is not good enough. When state leaders want to strip us of our future, hope is not a vote in the ballot box or a dollar in the bank.

We must refuse to pay.