HIGH LIFE: A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Arts School Proposed for Huntington Beach

School district trustees in Huntington Beach recently received a recommendation that an academy for performing arts be created 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 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 that the academy could doom their music and theater programs.

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 high schools 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 was selected for the site of the academy because of its 701-seat auditorium.

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

The academy classes 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 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.