Last year, DGS had a hiccup one morning when there were no students scheduled to read off the announcements. The school could not inform their student body and staff over the PA system without a voice, so senior Bradley Padavic and I stepped to the task. However, this opportunity was taken away from us because we weren’t on the speech team. Padavic used to be on the speech team during his freshman year, but since he wasn’t a part of the program anymore, it didn’t matter.

From this experience, I realized that the qualifications one must possess to partake in the DGS daily announcements should be updated to benefit a broader majority of the school’s student body.

“I think all students should be allowed to try out and audition to read the announcements, so we get a greater diversity of students reading them without sacrificing the quality of the announcements. Also, non-speech kids could bring new ideas to the format and make the announcements more interesting as a result,” Padavic said.

Director of Student Activities Jennifer Martinez shared why the announcements are confined to the speech team.

“Our DGS speech team is known as the ‘Mouth of South.’ Historically, they have had the privilege as speech students to read the DGS daily announcements, serve as emcees for our homecoming assembly and our homecoming variety show. Just as many organizations have annual events that they conduct each year, announcements is an activity that they lead on campus each year,” Martinez said.

Martinez recalled a time when those on the speech team were not the only ones allowed to read the announcements and what resulted from that decision.

“There was one year, many years ago, that we opened auditions to the entire school. Students submitted videos and signed up for slots on the calendar rotation. There wasn’t a lot of interest, and the rotation of announcement pairs didn’t operate as smoothly. Since things didn’t operate so smoothly, we returned to having the team that practices public speaking every day after school serve in the role of reading our morning announcements,” Martinez said.

Even students in DGS drama are denied the opportunity to read the announcements. Senior Mitchell Crane, who is only a part of DGS’s drama program spoke on what why actors should also be allowed to read the announcements.

“I think it can be unfair that theater kids are not allowed to do announcements just because you’re not a part of the speech team. I think any classmate at DGS can be qualified to do announcements. I think it qualifies for good language, recent experiences of public speaking and activities that you have been involved in with leadership,” Crane said.

Crane also remarked on how the exclusiveness of the announcements goes against what DGS stands for.

“DGS is a place where students can explore and try out different clubs, activities and sports. This rule of not being allowed to announce is not the Mustang Way. If the speech team is qualified, so does the theater program,” Crane said.

Senior Catherine Hewawissa is involved in both the speech team and drama. She is hesitant about the proposition of the speech team not being the only ones running the show for the announcements.

“I get why it’s limited to just speech kids because they literally stay after school to practice talking every day. I think that this is the simplest way to approach the whole topic of announcements. I’m not against other students doing it, but I think that would almost require auditions and make it complicated,” Hewawissa said.

On the other hand, Padavic discussed how branching out with students may even make speech students’ schedules easier to manage.

“Not only is it unfair to exclude non-speech students from this, but it’s inconvenient for some speech students. Some of them just have a hard time getting to and from class when they must read announcements, and with a greater variety of students available, it would be much easier to find students whose schedules work better with the announcements, like if they have study hall during announcements,” Padavic said.

No matter if a student is on the speech team, drama, radio or nothing at all, reading the announcements for their school should not be an impossible dream for student’s. DGS, let’s continue living by the “You Belong Here” motto and grant this school’s announcements to be all-inclusive.