ELBERTA, Ala. — Baldwin County Heritage Museum deals with the past by and large. The history of Baldwin County, preserved inside BCHM’s buildings and on its grounds, is fixed and unchanging, but the same can’t be said for the present and future.

A decision made several years ago to turn BCHM into a teaching facility as it were — create a museum that would be a resource to the county’s young people — is in jeopardy today in spite of a complete makeover of BCHM that has taken thousands of volunteer hours to complete and the presence of a world-class exhibit.

When the makeover began and plans were laid for a new direction for the museum, there was no national recession and no proration impacting the funding of Baldwin County’s public schools to the tune of $23 million this year, more next year.

In short, no one saw it coming, but that doesn’t change what could be a bleak future for the museum that opened its doors to the public in 1987.

“I am truly disheartened,” said BCHM Education Director Becky Holliday concerning the lack of interaction the museum has had with the Baldwin County Public School System.

Indeed, Holliday has communicated those very words to Terry Wilhite, director of communications for the Public School System. Wilhite has used the same word — “disheartened” — concerning a report Holliday made on March 13 concerning what she called the Public School System’s lack of involvement and interest in BCHM.

“I am sad to say the response of the school community has been minimal,” Holliday said in her e-mail.

“So much so, in fact, our board will now be faced with the decision of closing the museum except by appointment for Wed. & Thurs. The numbers do not justify keeping the facilities open during the week or using our limited financest [sic] to hire part time [sic] staff to guarantee the smooth operation of the museum. There is not a single school group on the books for the remainder of the school year.”

Holliday said Elberta, Elsanor and Foley schools have been the exception to the rule as far as using BCHM for educational purposes, but notes those schools’ interest was “driven by individual teachers.” She also said home school and private school groups from Pensacola and throughout Baldwin County have visited the museum.

Wilhite, in responding to Holliday’s report, said opportunities for field trips by public school students “are few and far between because of the immense pressures of No Child Left Behind and other state/Federal mandates.

“When a rare opportunity does arise, typically a teacher will opt to choose a trip that augments a specific lesson plan at hand and frankly, there’s a great measure of competition from venues seeking the rare opportunities to host student excursions.”

Holliday, in her e-mail to Wilhite, called it a “tragic irony that one of our schools will bus the children to New Orleans to go to the zoo - but they are not coming to share in the 200th anniversary of this county or experience a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore undersea treasure and learn how it applies to their own history.”

Holliday’s reference is to Odyssey Marine Exploration’s “Shipwreck!” exhibit at BCHM that features treasures recovered from the SS Republic, a Civil War-era side-wheel steamship that was lost off the coast of Georgia. BCHM has a link to school group reservation forms on the Web site concerning the “Shipwreck!” exhibit.

But Wilhite notes that “funds just don’t exist to be venturesome.” He points out that the school budget has been “gutted” by $23 million this school year, and it looks worse for next year.

“Certainly, we cannot do the things we’ve always done with fewer dollars,” Wilhite said.

Holliday, however, noted not a single school principal or School Board representative has visited the museum to evaluate it and the Odyssey exhibit as to their educational usefulness.

It took two years of speaking engagements to find the funding to create the kind of educational opportunity for students that is available at BCHM, Holliday said.

“These results are very distressing, especially taking into consideration the enormous amount of advertising that has been donated to support this exhibit (Odyssey) and educational opportunity and the community and civic group donations to build the History Walk and Exhibit Hall to house these new exhibits.”

According to Holliday, BCHM sought and received a grant that would allow them to use $2 of every student ticket to pay for the bus and driver. To date, only two groups of students have availed themselves of the offer. Also, there have been no takers for interactive participation in the schools with the museum, Holliday said.

Wilhite praised BCHM for the “excellent kits” that were assembled and sent to all schools. He promised to see that any additional marketing materials would be directed to teachers.