By Nick Taylor Standring,
Staff Writer.
On March 25, the Santa Rosa City Schools District board of directors met to discuss ‘Special Programs’ throughout the school district—including the highly regarded ArtQuest magnet program. Since 1994, the ArtQuest program has served the students of Santa Rosa High School by “provid[ing] an above and beyond experience for students who wish to concentrate on the arts during their high school years and for whom creativity and artistic expression is of paramount importance,” according to the AQ website. Many ArtQuest alumni have found success in the arts, including Daniel Farrand, a Hollywood screenwriter and producer and Kevin Kwan Loucks, the CEO of Chamber Music America, among numerous other alums.
Due to the onslaught of budget cuts from the struggling Santa Rosa City Schools District, the ArtQuest program has been put at risk of hefty reductions and potentially a complete disbandment of the program. One of the proposed reductions to the program is to reduce the two-period schedule to just one. This proposed change has raised reasonable concern among AQ students, teachers and alumni. The entire program would be detrimentally affected by this change. For example, the Video Arts and Theatre Arts sections would be demolished. If these changes were to be implemented, it would mean no more big-production plays, no more musicals and no more complex, extracurricular films. Not only would the Video Arts and Theatre programs suffer, so would every other section. There are necessary cuts that need to take place for every school, including SRHS; however, this doesn’t mean that the heart and soul of our school should be gutted. The cuts should take into consideration what sets SRHS out from other high schools within the district and beyond.
On March 26, the Day Without Art protest took place. A group of passionate students gathered around the AQ gate, facing the busy Mendocino Avenue, raising signs printed with various pro-art statements. Passing vehicles honked in support of the cause before the students who marched down to Courthouse Square. “There were probably around 200 kids there,” said freshman Elijah Leonard.
The ArtQuest program serves 320 students, about a quarter of all senior high attendees. If this integral program was to be reduced, the district could hemorrhage those students, further worsening the financial crisis. In addition, the ArtQuest program brings in dozens of transfer students, positively impacting the finances of the district. If we put the program at risk of severe cuts, vital numbers of students could be lost, which further jeopardizes the district’s finances.
We have already seen a reduction in enrollment in the ArtQuest program due to the uncertainty of its future. If this case is the start of a trend, countless dollars would be lost, opening the door for a complete disbandment of the program.
