School Music Program May Violate Law : Conejo Valley: Elementary students pay $90 a semester to learn to play an instrument. A state official says the fee may be illegal.

The Conejo Valley School District may be breaking state law with its elementary school music program, a state education official says.

In 17 elementary schools in the Thousand Oaks district, fourth- through sixth-graders must pay $90 a semester to learn to play a musical instrument in a program run by the Arts Council of Conejo Valley.

The fee may violate the state Constitution’s guarantee of a free education, said Joyce Eckrem, a deputy general counsel of the state Department of Education. The state Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that it is illegal to charge for any educational program--even if it is an extracurricular activity--that is related to the educational curriculum, she said.

However, the state probably would not move to investigate the program unless a formal complaint is filed, Eckrem said.

The lessons are given at the school, and most of the schoolchildren involved miss some class time to learn instrumental music for about an hour a week. The lessons are taught by six band teachers hired by the Arts Council, said Carol Alexander, elementary school music coordinator. Students pay their fees to the teachers.

About 530 students, or 14% of those in the fourth through sixth grades, paid for the instruction last year, Alexander said.

She said scholarships for at least part of the cost are available to any students who request them. But only about eight or 10 students received full or partial scholarships last year, she said.

A higher percentage of students at the district’s more affluent schools take the fee-based course than at schools in more modest neighborhoods, she said.

One of the district’s 18 elementary schools stopped participating in the instrumental music program because not enough students could afford it.

Conejo Elementary, located in an older section of Thousand Oaks, has a high number of students from low-income families, “many of whom just simply can’t afford the lessons,” Principal Linda Musella said.

Musella said she feels the fee-based program creates a division between poor and affluent students.

“It creates a real problem, a sort of have and have-nots” situation, she said.

The Conejo district cut its free elementary school band program in 1978 after Proposition 13 led to drastic cuts in school funding, Alexander said. It set up the fee-based program in 1982 when the absence of instrumental music in the primary grades began to affect the junior high and high school bands, Supt. William Seaver said.

Conejo is “a unified district, and it really affects your high school” when students do not have the opportunity to learn to play an instrument before seventh grade, Seaver said.

“I really would like to leave our program in place the way it is,” he said.

District officials maintained that the music course is legal because it is sponsored by the Arts Council, a nonprofit group.

“Our district is not charging a fee,” Assistant Supt. Richard Simpson said. “Parents are paying the Arts Council for lessons, and they are being excused from class to do that.”

But the program may still violate state law, Eckrem said.

“It looks to me like the district has tried to separate it,” Eckrem said. “They’re trying to make it look like it’s not part of the curriculum. Before they booted (the music program) out, I’m sure they considered it part of the curriculum,” she said.

Brochures describing the course are distributed by the elementary schools, Alexander said. In addition, elementary band students go on to participate in the intermediate school band program, which is a regular part of the seventh- and eighth-grade curriculum.

And Alexander, coordinator of the fee-based course, is a full-time school district employee as a band teacher at two intermediate schools. The Arts Council pays her separately for her work in the elementary school program, she said.

Simpson said no parents have questioned whether the Conejo program is legal. He said he does not know if the district obtained a legal opinion when it established the elementary school music course.

Alexander said the music program has “been a very good example of how two community agencies can work together at this time when our school funding is experiencing one problem after another.”

The problem came to light when the Pleasant Valley school board considered establishing a program modeled on the one in Conejo Valley. The Camarillo school district eliminated its instrumental music program this fall to balance the budget.

An attorney advised the school board that state law forbids charging students for educational activities.

District officials and a group of parents and residents called Save Our Kids’ Music is exploring other ways to renew the instrumental music program.

The district could get around the prohibition on charging fees if the band classes were held before or after school and were run by Save Our Kids’ Music, Supt. Shirley Carpenter said. But this might interfere with other extracurricular activities and with bus schedules, she said.

Another option would be for Save Our Kids’ Music to donate money to the district for a band program. Last year, the instrumental music program cost $59,000.

A state Education Department official said it would be permissible for Pleasant Valley or Conejo to run a band program paid for by donations from parents.

“If the parents or anyone else want to help the school to defray the costs, they can do that . . . as long as participation by the kids is not contingent upon payment,” said Joanne Lowe, an attorney for the state Education Department.