HUNTINGTON BEACH : Performing Arts School Is Proposed

School district trustees received a recommendation this week calling for the creation in September of an academy for performing arts at Huntington Beach High School.

The goal is to enrich dance, theater, singing and instrumental music studies by concentrating them in a central setting.

Officials said they hope that the academy would stop the drain of top students from Huntington Beach Union High School District to the performing arts academy at Los Alamitos High School.

Critics said a local academy would gut other schools in the district of their existing arts programs, except for introductory classes that they could continue to offer.

Fountain Valley teachers and parents head the opposition. They told district trustees Tuesday that the academy could doom their music and theater programs.

The proposal for the academy is recommended by a 10-member committee composed mostly of performing arts teachers. Trustees are scheduled to vote March 9 on the proposal.

An alternative calls for establishing an academy but allowing Fountain Valley and Edison highs to retain their own programs.

A third option would permit students to pursue classes in the performing arts at one of the six district high schools of their choice. There would be no academy under this alternative.

Huntington Beach High School was selected for the site of the academy because of its 701-seat auditorium.

The committee recommends hiring a dance instructor and adding an instrumental instructor. Cost is estimated at $125,000 a year.

A foundation would be formed to raise money. Officials are discussing with local elementary school districts and the city about participation and sharing the costs.

Band programs will remain at each high school because they contribute to school identification and spirit, Assistant Supt. John Myers said.

The academy would meet in the afternoon and after regular school hours. Students would have the option of attending their home school in the morning for academics or requesting a permit to attend Huntington Beach High School full time.

The students would provide their own transportation.

Students with beginning-level skills would remain at their home school until they could qualify by audition for the advanced program at the academy.

Ted Reid, music and theater teacher at Fountain Valley High School, criticized the academy plan Thursday, contending that it would “undo” strong school programs and concentrate them in the academy without assurance that the academy would succeed, he said.

“It’s a bad plan and a bad policy,” he said.