We, active members in supporting Camarillo High School, advocate the postponement of construction of the field until after the second week of June. Constructing the field during the height of athletics will drastically disrupt and inconvenience students, parents, and other members of the community. In addition, it is not a feasible plan if one takes into account economic considerations. Our proposed solution is to advocate for more fundraising from the sports teams to enable effective total construction of all improvement projects within a single time frame of least inconvenience, here being summer.

One of the main concerns regarding the currently scheduled construction is the debilitating effect of the sweeping interruptions to the collective community. For example, many members beyond the scope of only the school utilize the facilities contained at the school to great benefit. One such community organization is the Rotary Club of Camarillo who regularly participates in the improvement of the entire city of Camarillo, awarding scholarships and hosting events for the community such as fundraisers. Examples of their philanthropy are the Four-Way Test Essay which awarded ACHS students with scholarship money and improving a smaller children's playground at the RAIN Transitional Living Center. By commencing construction work during the track season, the Rotary Club will be unable to host their oldest annual community service project, the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet, which is one of their largest sources of revenue to fund the aforementioned ventures for society. In addition, the Camarillo Cosmos Youth Track & Field Club uses the track as an easily accessible and effective area to shape adolescents into future Camarillo athletes. If the alteration of the field takes place as scheduled, the hundreds of potentials will be majorly displaced and their futures become bleak.

Moreover, the issues regarding transportation for students and parents will cause great inconveniences. Consider the extravagant time consumption transportation will waste along with the effects of that. Waiting for everyone to load the bus, unload the bus, and if the varsity need to practice for an extended amount of time? The consequences are hardly worth considering. And if you venture to purport that we may be able to drive ourselves, we cannot due to liability issues. This contrasts sharply with the ease football can relocate during the summer. But allow me to accentuate just a few impacts this time inconvenience will cause. Discrimination. Incapacitation. Pessimism. And now allow me delineate these poignant points.

Through this voracious squandering of time, we are discriminating actively against dedicated students. For example, working students. How can anyone expect an adolescent to somehow balance an early working life, the heavy school load, and the dedication required for athletics when hours of his/her time are lavishly sentenced out to sit in a pungent bus? It’s just not possible. Moreover, consider the scholars toiling away in AP and Honors classes. The people most affected by this event include a vast multitude of these future leaders of the world. How will they fare in their classes and other community commitments if they are further burdened by such superfluous employment of time? These staunch and stolid members of society will be compelled to rescind one of their dedications, significantly reducing their involvement in the community. And we may lose some of the best renaissance people in our society, the sliver of population who are both physically and mentally capable.

The hopefuls who’ve been crushed by tighter guidelines and other commitments, what does one suppose will occur to them? What will they do now with their free time and effort? Instead of engaging in friendly competition that compels their best and promotes tight-knit bonds of friendship, they could fall into all kinds of mischief. For example, some of those less inspired to perform in the classroom may have pressured themselves to maintain their academics to have the ability to perform in puissant athletics. Now, by either missing the cut off by milliseconds or being forced to commit to a different obligation, they may see angstroms of reason to apply any effort or time into the tedium of the classroom, wherein their grades will plummet. Moreover, those with extra time may now implement it into less worthy tasks, say anti-social video games or galavanting to unsavory places with shadier compatriots. One must also consider if our community may see an increase in those dabbling in darker past times. Regardless of how their new time is spent, one thing is for sure. They will not be growing into fit men and women, rejoicing and consoling together with subsequent victories and defeats, creating lasting connections with best friends, lovers. They will be more distant and divided from the high school experience, of which occurs only once in a lifetime. Those who once were part of something bigger can now only watch as they are left behind by the fortunate few that must leave them in the dust.

With such detriment to our team, the tattered remnants of our once bonded team will be forced to endure even further losses besides that of their compatriots. The sports teams have just entered into the Marmonte League, a devastatingly competitive arena with schools more than prepared to crush the greenhorns new to their league. If we don’t want to be dogged by humiliating defeats, all of our prime athletic teams need every single hard fought advantage attainable. Camarillo pride demands no crippling shackles be tightened onto us, no lack of home court advantage, no effort draining practices far from home. If we are to manifest our true capabilities, we need edges over them, not detriments. But if the track and field are shut to our athletes, how will we train to be the best we can be? Swim will be unable to conduct their dryland exercises, Soccer unable to drill on the field, PE unable to pass our students through the mile, and Track unable to do anything without what is essential to the sport, contained even in its name. One is forced to admit that our athletic programs will definitely not be able to fly their true colors. Furthermore, those students with high aims to bring prestige to this school may not be able to. How will ambitious athletes even consider breaking school records if they can’t even run on school grounds? How will they aspire to become like the great athletes before them: Ahmed, who runs at Harvard, or Ray, who received both football and track scholarships? Individual as well as collaborative efforts will be shy of the mark.

Another vital consideration are the monetary concerns. For example, the aforementioned transportation will carry a hefty price tag. One particularly humorous anecdote we’ve heard is that one of the clubs on campus, Junior States of America, find it cheaper to charter a party bus rather than lease an actual school bus as transportation to their functions. Yet this has serious implications. If we need to charter multiple busses nearly every day of the school year just for practice, the expenses will be savage. And this is before factoring in all the costs for transportation to all the competitions away from home, as we won’t have a single one on the home front. Moreover, we will be hard pressed to afford these extra expenses, as our fundraising will face drastic reductions. Our annual Jog-a-Thon to raise money will be abandoned, all snack bar proceeds will be void, and those sponsorships that line the track, along with those that sell during sporting events, will all fall through. In addition, the lack of members on the team will mean a substantial loss in the number of donations when we most need it. Finally, pause and examine the plan at the moment to improve our athletic facilities. From our most current information, the procedure of amelioration will be a multi-step affair that seems to encourage that expenses be multiplied. If the construction is implemented as planned, then the turf will be built one year, the track another, and then the surrounding areas a further year. Appraise the cost this will be, monetary and immaterial. This will exponentially swell expenses, as each successive year, we will have to throw more money to fence off the area again, to close the track again, to call the laborers back again, to bus everyone again, etcetera. This will be highly inefficient use of funds and may delay the completion of this project well into the future, as these additional costs will cause setbacks, and we may even be in this unfortunate predicament as the potential athletes from the new high school, Rancho Campana, attempt to share our facilities.