More than 1,590 teachers could lose their jobs.
Class sizes in hundreds of classrooms might increase from 20 to 30 students.And one district may shutter a campus altogether.
The county's 28 school districts are deep in efforts to develop plans to cut about $204 million, or 5 percent, from their operating budgets in the face of a mounting state budget crisis.
They're preparing for the worst because school districts, which receive about 70 percent of their funding from the state, often have to approve staffing and much of their spending for the next school year long before Sacramento lawmakers finish wrangling over the state budget.
"These could be the most devastating cuts our schools have ever seen," county Superintendent William Habermehl said. "I don't know how some of our school districts will be able to survive this and provide the same quality of education."
For the past month, many districts have been scrambling, studying everything from cutting security guards and janitors to eliminating music programs and bus routes.
What invariably happens is that school districts immediately announce the cancellation of music programs and other arts programs that parents really want, and sometimes I'm convinced they do that on purpose to generate anger among the parents in the hopes that they will contact the governor and complain. What you never hear is a district coming out and saying something like this: "We've looked at the situation and we clearly have too many high-paid administrators using up oxygen in our district headquarters. We need to cut back a couple of people whose salaries could pay for all the music teachers we currently have".
No, that will never happen. Instead the music programs get the shaft because administrators have no concept of the value of such programs. The word around here is that only elementary music will be cut out, but there's a trickle-up effect when you do that. If kids don't develop a love for music and a basic knowledge of their instrument in elementary school, when they get to junior high they are less likely to start an instrument, and if they do start one they have a lot of catching up to do. The junior high band director finds himself spending his time teaching the basics of playing rather than developing musicians as he should.
That, in turn, hurts the high school program which gets freshmen with only two years of instrumental music experience instead of the four or five they would have with a good elementary program. The entire district's program suffers when the bottom layer is eliminated.
When we moved into our current home in 1990 we didn't really look that hard at the local schools. Our daughter was one 1 1/2 and our son was yet to be. We didn't realize how lucky we were until later when our kids got into music, first at Del Cerro Elementary, then at La Paz Junior High, and finally at Mission Viejo High School. My daughter is a music major in college today because of the love of music that was instilled in her by her public school teachers, especially Dan Robbins at La Paz and John Hannan and Doug Meeuwsen (who is facing job elimination) at Mission.
My daughter plays flute and piccolo, and my son has played trumpet since 6th grade and picked up the baritone this year (he's a junior). Through the music program the kids have been involved in an award winning marching band (my daughter's band won the state championship in 2003), she traveled to the Calgary Stampede in 2004 and both kids will go again this summer, the boy has played several times at the Monterey Jazz Festival (and will again next month), and my daughter performed with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall last June. In what other activity do you get those kinds of experiences?
Unlike most sports which have a limited time frame in which a person can participate, music is something you can do your whole life. While aging football players are gimping around on their bad knees, musicians are reaching their prime. My daughter has carried her music into college where she is a music eduation major and will spend 10 days touring Italy with her college band. I just hope there are still music education programs left in schools by the time she graduates.
The parents in this district have been incredibly supportive of the school music programs. Both the La Paz and Mission Viejo Booster organizations are second to none and we've even voted extra taxes on ourselves to pay for school building construction like the new band room that's being built at Mission (thankfully, the funds for that were approved before the coming round of budget cuts). Although the parents are dedicated, there's only so much they can handle. We can't singlehandedly underwrite the district's music program.
I've said all this to reinstate the fact that school districts are hurting themselves more than they'll ever realize if they cut music programs every time there's a budget tightening. Music programs turn out good kids, highly motivated team players who are driven to excellence. I don't know of another school program that has such consistent benefits to the community.
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