DAPHNE, Ala. — While the Baldwin County Board of Education faces a $23 million deficit this year, the county’s fine-arts programs are feeling the biggest brunt of necessary budget cuts. The board hasn’t considered cutting arts altogether, but it must determine which employees it will retain, a responsibility delegated to each principal.

The board reported no timetable for the employee retention process; however, decisions must be made soon as some teachers are expected to return to school the first week of August.

“There’s never, ever been a consideration by the board to eliminate the fine-arts program in Baldwin County public schools,” Terry Wilhite, the county school system’s communications director, said.

“Each school was given a number of positions to cut,” he said. “It was left to the principal to make the numbers work and to figure out what to cut. In some instances, those cuts affected fine-arts teachers, one of many teacher-types affected.”

In one round of layoffs, teachers who lacked tenure or certification in dual subjects were let go, according to school officials who’ve noted that fine-arts instructors can be a teacher-type with certification to teach only arts—which makes them vulnerable to the budget cuts.

Fine-arts supervisor Vicky Cook at a school board work session Tuesday advocated a greater balance of athletic and fine-arts programs.

“All students in Baldwin County deserve to have equal access to the arts education classes,” Cook said. “It is left up to the discretion of the principal when an opening is there to fill it with the arts or something else. If the arts were treated as the athletics were, Baldwin County would be in fantastic shape.” 

But it’s not that simple, according to Daphne High School Principal Don Blanchard, who noted a budgetary need for dual certification, which at DHS he said, shows no bias.

“We have a physics teacher that coaches football and driver’s ed teachers that coach football and two P.E. teachers that coach football and history teachers that coach football …” he has said. “They are teachers first. The extracurricular activities (come second).”

Whatever the case, the arts must be saved, according to Cook.

“They’re essential to saving students at risk,” she said, referring to a positive impact she believes such programs have on students struggling in traditional college-prep tracks. “Every student needs an outlet, whether it’s music, band or theater.”

National education advisors seem to agree.

“The arts are a core academic subject and part of a complete education for all students,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a news release.

“The arts are also important to American students gaining the 21st-century skills they will need to succeed in higher education and the global marketplace—skills that increasingly demand creativity, perseverance and problem solving combined with performing well as part of a team.”

Cook said fine arts promote improved academic learning and help the development of neurobiological systems.

Students exposed to drama, music and dance may better master reading, writing and math than those who focus solely on academics, according to a 2008 study by the Arts Education Partnership. The report—which took two years to produce, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Department of Education—is based on nearly 100 researchers’ analysis of 62 studies of various art forms, including drama, dance, music and visual arts. It’s the first study to combine all the arts and make comparisons with academic achievement, performance on standardized tests and improvements in social skills and student motivation, according to USA Today, which earlier this year published the findings.

James Catterall, education professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, said the study suggests that arts education may be particularly helpful to financially disadvantaged students and those in need of remedial instruction.

“While education in the arts is no magic bullet for what ails many schools, the arts warrant a place in the curriculum because of their intimate ties to most everything we want for our children and schools,” he said.

Cook contended that producing creative and critical thinkers is necessary for the world to function properly, orderly and efficiently.

“Times have changed and we have to keep up the pace for a chance in the economic race to survive,” she said. “The arts have been around before anyone ever thought of an organized education system and if anyone has studied their history, art history or read literature, the Bible or philosophers, it is evident.”

Cook projected a grim future, should the fine-arts programs continue to experience setbacks.

“Students will have less exposure to the arts, leaving a gap in their education,” she said, contending that there would be higher dropout rates and more problems with students taking courses they dislike.