Marquee Myths

May 22, 2012 • Mr. Feller  
Filed under Student Life

Good morning Wildcats! This is Mr. Feller here today to share with you a brief message about the marquee. I have talked with hundreds of students about this and an overwhelming majority disagree with the idea of a marquee. Some of you have even created a Facebook page to show your disdain for a $40,000 marquee.

In all of my research I have found that most of you who disagree with raising funds for a marquee are misinformed about few things. I am here today to dispel any myths you might have heard:

Myth 1: Parking ticket money goes straight into the marquee fund.

The money that we have raised thus far for the marquee has been 100% donated and will continue to be 100% donated until we have enough money to pay for the marquee. The $40,000 that will pay for the marquee will not come out of the school’s budget, hence the need for donations, and will not affect the money used for your education. So the argument that we have the choice for either a new marquee or new walls in the English hallway is not valid. Now, if we want we can do a separate fund raiser for the English walls, but then you’d probably come up with something better to use the money for. And for your information, the money that you pay for parking tickets goes straight into an account that pays for various student activities. Trust me, I checked.

Myth 2: A marquee is not a very good use of $40,000.

$40,000 is relatively inexpensive for the amount of advertising we will be able to do. If we were to compare the cost of a billboard of similar size to the cost of our marquee, we would be spending between $700 and $1000 a month to be able to display a single image. With a marquee, we would have the luxury of being able to change the image instantaneously. If we want to display a full page ad in a newspaper, we would have to pay $1000 an issue (and that’s for the Clipper) which has a readership of about 20,000. With the marquee, we would easily be advertising to 20,000 people . . . a day. We have the advantage because our school faces the freeway, the only school in the state that does. So $40,000 to advertise our school, to millions of people a year, is a killer deal.

 Myth 3: A marquee is not going to help the school.

Advertising our school is important now, more than ever. Allow me to explain the way things work: It used to be that students went to the school they were assigned and that was that. Now, with new laws, and rules, and variances, students can pretty much choose where they want to go (as long as they have transportation). Funding in our school is based on the number of students we have attending. The more students we have, the more funding we have. With more funding we can hire more teachers. And with more teachers, we have more programs. If we have more programs, more people are going to be interested in our school and we’ll get more students, if we have more students, then we get more funding . . . . and the cycle continues. However, the opposite is also true. If we lose students, we lose funding. If we lose funding, we lose teachers. If we lose teachers, we lose programs. And if we lose programs, we lose students. And if we lose students we lose funding. And . . . I think you get the idea.

Hopefully, you understand now why it is important to support the marquee. It’s not about the money. It’s about letting the world know how great Woods Cross High School is. Imagine everyone who passes by reading “Woods Cross Music Department takes 1st place at Festival” or “WX Boys Golf takes State” or “Woods Cross Drama Presents:” or “ Swimming” or “Sterling Scholars” or “Robotics” or “Track” and all of the sudden they realize that everybody at this school truly is somebody. No, my dear wildcats, it’s not about the money, it’s not about bureaucracy, and it’s most certainly not about parking tickets. The decision to get a marquee was all about Woods Cross High School, about getting our name out there the best we can. It’s about letting everyone know how great each and every one of you are at what you do.

This is our final push this year for donations to support the marquee. This Friday will be “$5 Friday.” If every student brings their donation of just $5 to the office to support the marquee, we will reach our goal. And years from now when your children are attending Woods Cross High School you can tell them you helped raise money for the marquee and they will see that you are proud to be a Wildcat.

If you would like to discuss this further, please come by my room, I would love to get your point of view.

Thank you for your time. Go Wildcats!

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