RESCUE WORKERS: Fallout from the county’s bankruptcy...

RESCUE WORKERS: Fallout from the county’s bankruptcy continues. . . . Arts education in the public schools, already hurt by budget cuts of recent years, has come under increasing pressure as schools look to make up for funds lost in the fiscal debacle. . . . So: Administrators of museums, orchestras and other arts institutions across the county say they are being asked more and more to step in and help make up the shortfall.

TRAVELING MUSIC: The Orange County Performing Arts Center is receiving more requests for its series of in-school performances by musicians. There were 500 in 1995, and that will grow in 1996, director Tom Tomlinson says. . . . But there may be a positive side to the bankruptcy woes when it comes to education, he believes: “It has forced school districts to evaluate what is important. And most have come back and said the arts are, in fact, critical to a well-rounded education.”

BACK TO SCHOOL: Students aren’t the only ones benefiting from the education programs mounted by public arts institutions. Tyler Stallings, director of education at the Huntington Beach Art Center, says he’s finding a growing demand for teacher training. . . . Teachers are leading a call to mandate arts education in county schools, but “they themselves often don’t know how to teach art,” he says. The art center plans to help, launching its first teacher-training workshop this month.

TEACHERS FIRST: The Laguna Art Museum also offers teacher support, with training and curriculum materials, in addition to programs for students. While such efforts are an increasingly vital part of the equation for arts education, there is some worry that school budget directors will decide that museums and other institutions can supplant classroom instruction altogether. . . . “It would be a mistake,” says Margaret Maynard, Laguna’s first curator of education. “There’s no substitute for teachers in the classroom giving individual attention to children that they know. We see [the children] only once.”