A Look Back : Lively Year in the Arts : 1991: Lancaster gets a new concert hall, Grove School of Music is still afloat and a Hollywood cash calf grows up. : GROVE SCHOOL RALLIES

Four months ago, the Grove School of Music in Van Nuys, suffering from a $600,000 debt and dwindling enrollment, filed for bankruptcy.

School officials, however, now claim that higher enrollment and budgetary cutbacks have stabilized the school’s financial status.

“Filing Chapter 11 was the best possible thing we could have done,” said Todd Ferguson, school administrator. “Right now, the cash flow into the school is more positive than it has been for five years.”

Ferguson attributed the economic upsurge to a more aggressive advertising campaign.

“We never advertised the school properly,” Ferguson said, “and now we are. We are spending between 8% and 10% of our budget on advertising. Before, it was between 3% and 4%.”

Grove filed for Chapter 11 protection in August to erase debts that had threatened to close the school permanently. Because of a 25% decline in enrollment and a new state reimbursement law, Grove had lost about $1 million. The law required private, post-secondary schools to refund a portion of tuition to students who ended their studies in a middle of a session. Reimbursing such students cost Grove $200,000.

Under Chapter 11, the school has been legally shielded from creditors while it reorganizes operations.

He said enrollment has jumped to 370 from its low of 290 earlier this year. During the summer of 1990, enrollment reached its all-time high of 450, and Ferguson believes it should reach that level again next summer. Once enrollment reaches 400, he added, the school will be ready to emerge from bankruptcy.

The school developed from classes taught in the early 1970s by Dick Grove, a successful composer, arranger and jazz pianist. In 1979, the school was accredited by the National Assn. of Schools of Music as a private, post-secondary institution.