Orange to allow bands, others at football games
After weeks of pushback by Orange County students and parents, the school district has reversed course and will allow band, cheer, dance and ROTC to perform at football games.
The district had earlier prohibited performances at games as a COVID-19 precaution.
“After review of the data, we are comfortable with al
lowing cheerleaders, pep bands, dancers and color guard to attend the next game if desired,” Superintendent Barbara Jenkins said in an email to staff Friday morning, which the Orlando Sentinel obtained.
It was not clear whether all schools would immediately resume performances at games. In an email to his school, Winter Park High principal Matthew Arnold said the school’s home game next Friday would welcome back these activities and “an increased number of spectators.”
The change comes after weeks of complaints that the district was showing favoritism for sports over the performing arts. Students and parents rallied against the policy at Lake Eola Sept. 3, according to the Orange Observer, and the hashtag #LetThemAllPlay has circulated on social media.
West Orange High senior percussionist Sarah Paquette started a petition that urged the district to alter its policy so that “both sports and arts are being treated equally.” It had drawn about
7,600 signatures by Friday.
“Band, cheer, and dance are more than disposable sources of entertainment. These programs are home to so many brilliant students, who dedicate the same passion and time as football players every year,” the petition said.
The school district in a previous statement said its decision to forgo performances at games was “made in the interest of student safety while not hindering opportunities for athletes to receive college schol
arships.” The district said schools could broadcast audio and video recordings of student performances at games as an alternative.
Orange was an outlier among other Central Florida counties — Seminole, Volusia, Osceola, Marion, Lake and Polk — that are allowing these activities to continue during games, in some capacity.
As football presses forward, the school district this week began an everyother-week rapid testing program for football per
sonnel, using up to $2 million in federal CARES Act money.
Five reported COVID-19 cases within the Evans High football program caused a cancellation of its Thursday night season opener versus West Orange High, which was announced by OCPS a day before kickoff. Players, coaches and trainers are in quarantine.
The prohibition on performing arts at games never made sense to Lindsey Shapiro, an Apopka High
School senior in marching band, who noted in an interview before the reversal was announced that band members can social distance while playing, but football players can’t.
“If a contact sport is allowed to resume their normal schedules with precautions put in place, then all of the performance programs should have the same opportunity,” the 17-year-old said.
Guidelines of the National Federation of State High School Associations consider football a “higher risk” sport with “close, sustained contact between participants, lack of significant protective barriers, and high probability that respiratory particles will be transmitted between participants.”
The Florida High School Athletic Association, which played in a role in Orange County’s decision, links to these guidelines on its website.
The school district had argued that music-related scholarships aren’t tied directly to a student’s membership in the marching band, unlike athletic scholarships, for which in-game performance is more im
portant.
“The majority of those scholarships are earned because of the high-level proficiency demonstrated on their instrument based on an audition,” according to OCPS.
Some parents considered that an excuse to not treat the performing arts as an equal counterpart to sports.
“You marginalize all of their talent and all of their effort and all of their skill set that they have and need to perfect. You have just marginalized them and told them that they’re not worth anything — that football is better than they are,” Kathy Willoughby, whose son is in the Colonial High marching band, said prior to the county’s reversal.
Windermere High mom Lee Berman said she feared Orange County marching band students, if they weren’t allowed to perform this season, would fall behind those in other counties who are training for the same scholarships and auditions.
“Is it right? Is it fair? Nope, it’s not,” Berman said. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s not equal opportunity.”