Editor’s Note: This is the first of several articles the Daphne Bulletin will publish on school programs affected by the economic recession.

Are you a Daphne student, parent of a student, or faculty member at a Daphne or Spanish Fort school affected by these program changes? If so, we want to hear your thoughts.

E-mail bulletin@gulfcoastnewspapers.com, or call 626-9300 during regular office hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; ask for Thomas Boni or Sasha Heller. The newspaper may share your story in a future edition.

DAPHNE, Ala.—Daphne High School’s “Broadway Revue”—set for 7 p.m. May 5—may be the last time Trojan students get to perform on stage as the Baldwin County Board of Education faces a deficit that will include cutting the school’s fine-arts program, unless the necessary funding can be found.

The school system faces a $47 million shortfall over this year and next; officials cite a decrease in sales tax revenue as the catalyst.

About 190 jobs will be cut, covering all 47 Baldwin County schools, communications director Terry Wilhite said.

“We have been told we would get $23 million in stimulus money,” Wilhite said. “That’s half of what we need to offset the effects of proration.”

School officials await the state legislature’s passage of a K-12 budget to learn how much will be sent to Baldwin County schools—and if it’s enough to rehire teachers.

“Even if the legislature passes a budget—a page with numbers on it—there’s no certainty that there will be dollars to fund it,” Wilhite said.

“That’s what proration is: a downscale of the budget when money isn’t available to support the numbers in it,” he added.

Daphne High School last year hired Donna Toler—formerly at Fairhope High—to serve as the school’s choral director. Fairhope High never hired a director to replace Toler, and the school this year dissolved its music program.

If DHS lacks funds to re-hire Toler, administrators said the school likely will cease its music program.

The news didn’t keep chorus students from making the most of what’s left of the program. DHS’ chorus competed, possibly for the last time, in Birmingham on Wednesday, in a state-wide assessment.

The group earned a 2 out of 5, with the highest mark being 1.