After experiencing a technical difficulty at UIL regionals on April 14 that lead to a student being disqualified from the meet, a group of UIL students will speak with Jenny Baggett on Monday before speaking with Principal Charles Presley about UIL funding and budgets.

The UIL academics team should receive a larger budget and more support.

A simple reason to why the UIL team should have its wishes granted is this: encouragement leads to success. Throughout the years, the UIL team has not been relatively large. The rate of students joining UIL events, attending district meets, and even advancing to regionals has increased throughout the years. However, UIL funding has not changed to fit these new accommodations.

From pep rallies to send-offs to Friday night football games, entire towns are ready to support the school’s sports teams. People from the community with no ties to the school join in on the spirit of it all. Sports is celebrated whether the game resulted in a win or loss – no person ever expected the sports team to prove that they were worthy of support. Many clubs at the school face prejudices that they are not even aware of; the UIL team falls under this category. For example, the streetside sign was changed to attribute Bailey Green for winning first place in news writing at the regionals competition. Two days later the sign was taken down to congratulate the girl’s soccer team for their state loss. From a bystanders viewpoint, it seems that KHS would rather congratulate the sports team for a loss over congratulating the UIL team for winning first in the region.

Kilgore High School is known for its sports teams. Schools from other districts do not look at KHS and think ‘what a prestigious school.’  That is a huge problem that no one is addressing. A few activists at KHS try to use forms of civil disobedience to change how the school is viewed, but those activists all get shut down immediately. If the UIL academics team received a larger budget, more and more students would join in, helping the team grow and succeed. Other schools would then look at the school and think, ‘KHS, where their sports team and their academics both matter.’

There is, of course, the possibility that the budget for all organizations is spread thin, and the UIL team is asking for too much for wanting new equipment. 

The UIL academics team should receive larger funding for next year’s team for necessities such as functioning computers and printers so no student ever has to be disqualified for faulty equipment again.