On Tuesday, May 12th, the Arkansas Arts Academy school board voted to remove basketball and soccer from the school. Sports are an important part of life and education. While AAA is primarily an arts school, there's no harm in offering basketball and soccer as it doesn't take away from those who do and don't want to participate. 

The main reasons given for the decision were flimsy; that it's causing a problem by forming cliques at lunch time. Cliques are formed by people with common interests and shared experiences - meaning, there's theater cliques, band cliques, dance cliques, etc. How this is suddenly a problem is baffling. Secondly, offering sports was deemed a failure with no metrics or justification given.

To be fair, they unanimously agreed archery and mountain biking were acceptable, as well as potentially cross country, as these sports aren't problems and don't breed, as board president Howard Alsdorf put it, “better than you type attitude.”

More importantly, the school board made this decision without any input from parents or students, the people this decision effects the most. 

This is our school, we deserve a say. If you are a parent or student who loves the arts and sports, an athlete who doesn't want to lose this precious outlet, or a member of this community who doesn't thing this fair, please, let them know by signing.