School Board President Off to New District : Schools: Ocean View’s Lottie Hobbs is moving so her children can be in arts programs unavailable in Huntington Beach.

Ocean View school board President Lottie Hobbs resigned this week because the school district she heads does not offer the classes she wants for her own children.

Hobbs, 39, is moving into the Los Alamitos Unified School District to take advantage of the music and arts programs that are unavailable in Ocean View, she said Thursday, two days after announcing her resignation.

At the time, she told the board that she was leaving because she was moving to Los Alamitos.

Hobbs said she is confident that the Ocean View School District, which is based in Huntington Beach, eventually will offer stronger fine arts classes, but not in time to benefit her own children, ages 9 and 12.

“It breaks my heart to leave,” she said.

“We have discovered that our children have strong musical ability and we feel that it is important to make this kind of a change in order to give them an opportunity to develop their talents fully,” she said.

Hobbs, who was elected to the board in November, 1990, said she is not critical of Ocean View and that her children received “a marvelous education.” The instructional program “is very, very good.”

But she said her children will get more music education because the school district in Los Alamitos has a history of providing a strong fine arts program.

Her daughter, about to enter the fourth grade in Los Alamitos Elementary School though registration hasn’t begun, will attend a music class twice a week for the school year and will take an instrumental music class twice a week after school, Hobbs said.

Her son, who will be a sixth-grader at McAuliffe Middle School, also will receive instrumental music instruction twice a week after school and can take an elective fine arts course in the coming year, she said.

In the seventh and eighth grades, he’ll be able to take an instrumental music class twice a week during the regular school day, she said.

Ocean View offers instrumental music to middle school students before classes begin only. The district formerly had six music teachers and a coordinator for elementary classes. Two teachers remain after school trustees beat back a proposal to eliminate all the teachers because of budget cuts.

Karen Colby, Ocean View’s director of curriculum and instruction, said Thursday the district is committed to expanding the fine arts programs that had been trimmed in recent years by budget cuts.

Next year, instrumental music before school for middle school students, a visual and performing arts class, a Meet the Masters artists course and various programs at individual schools will be available.

In addition, a committee of parents, administrators and teachers has been formed to incorporate more art offerings into the program, Colby said.

Hobbs said Ocean View trustees and Superintendent James R. Tarwater are committed to a strategy to benefit arts programs, probably beginning in about five years.

Hobbs said that she and her husband, Ronald, a market manager for a company in Tustin, bought a home in Los Alamitos.

Hobbs said she is not frustrated that fine arts programs weren’t bolstered during her time on the Ocean View board. She said balancing the budget, restructuring the district into a middle school system and integrating Oak View Elementary School were top priorities.

Los Alamitos Unified School District Trustee Jeanne Flint said fine arts have a high priority there and that her district has been fortunate to keep them in the budget.

But the district strives for balance, she said, and tries to educate “the whole child” in social, academic, physical and creative senses.

Ocean View Trustee Carol Kanode said the district and the community “will be losing a very vital leader.”

Kanode said the fine arts program “is an area that we’re all concerned about and need to improve. Not just in Ocean View but in all school districts.”

The Ocean View district board plans to appoint someone to fill Hobbs’ position on Sept. 21.

The appointee will hold office until Hobbs’ term expires in November, 1994, unless a petition calling for special election qualifies with the county superintendent of schools by Oct. 21.