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WILKES-BARRE — She spoke last but provoked the loudest applause.
Coughlin High School junior Rachel Benczkowski stepped to the microphone on Public Square after education advocates and politicians had championed art education and condemned the Wilkes-Barre Area School District.
“We were told our whole entire life to be happy, and happiness to people can be art and music and to learn and gain more knowledge,” Benczkowski said. “How can the people who told us to be happy be the same ones to take our happiness away?”
Benczkowski had arrived at the last minute of a Saturday rally to push for restoration of program cuts by the Wilkes-Barre Area School Board. She criticized the district for a series of recent decisions, including a stricter dress code, splitting the students between two buildings and the shuttering the century-old section of Coughlin.
“You take and take and take, and now your going to cut out some of our courses,” Benczkowski said. “You keep doing what your doing, Wilkes-Barre Area, keep taking more and soon you’ll have nothing.”
Benczkowski urged the crowd of about 70 people to “keep creating and keep going, keep writing and taking pictures and cooking and learning about the arts. Find your happiness wherever it may be.” The crowd cheered loud enough to outdo people driving by who honked in support.
Event organizer Robin Shudak introduced a series of speakers, including State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Wilkes-Barre; City Council members Tony Brooks and Beth Gilbert; radio talk show host and former Times Leader columnist Steve Corbett; Save Our Schools President Richard Holodick; and Susan Spicka, the interim director of the advocacy group Education Voters of Pennsylvania.
Pashinski and Spicka both stressed the need for the state to increase education funding so school boards don’t have to face the budget woes that prompted the Wilkes-Barre Area Board to vote to cut art, industrial art, library services and Family and Consumer Sciences. Studies determined the district could be up to $70 million in debt within five years if changes weren’t made.
“What’s happening here in Wilkes-Barre is heartbreaking, and it’s absolutely wrong,” Spicka said.
Gilbert argued better schools increase property values and decrease crime. “Stay creative, stay innovative and stay loud,” she concluded.
Brooks talked of a grade-school teacher who encouraged him during creation of a paper turkey, and of his school performance as Sen. Phogbound in a production of Li’l Abner. “To not have an art teacher in your life is a life incomplete,” he said.
Corbett warned that the board could be hiring friends and relatives even as it cuts programs, recounting how important it was to him when his school kept its library open for the summer, and citing the cause of education as “common ground” regardless of political differences.
Former city councilman George Brown said the art teacher when he attended Meyers High School “gave me a reason to go to school,” and quoted Gov. Tom Wolf: “Our state can never get stronger if our schools are getting weaker.”
Even the stones beneath the crowd’s feet spoke to art. They stood in the area covered with gray bricks, some of which bear petroglyphs — images depicting a wide range of things, including musical notes, a butterfly, the sun, and scissors and thread.
After the speeches many lined up to sign posters that called for restoring the programs. Shudak called them both “a petition” and “an artistic expression,” and promised to take them to the next school board meeting.
Seven-year-old Xander Jones signed the petition, grinned and grabbed a piece of sidewalk chalk nearby, drawing lines and adding his own silent statement to the rally.
