I believe that the arts are extremely important to build a thriving community and to take the arts completely away from a community would be a shame. This led me to the recent Bozeman School District agenda on budgeting and the call for a budget cut of $4.1 million. This has caused widespread panic within the community on what will and won’t face cuts. Rumors are everywhere on what may go, but a major fear among the student body is the fine arts getting even more depleted with the inevitable cuts.

According to the draft of the BSD7 K-12 Budget Consensus (Accessed January 9th), current propositions involving the arts include a reduction of the Fine Arts Certified Administrator Position, meaning the position would be downgraded from a full-time administrator position to a Teacher on Special Assignment position. This would free up $30,000 dollars, but only if the district’s voted safety levy passes, increasing taxes by around 3% for the Bozeman community to account for roughly $2 million. If this does not pass, then the district will eliminate the Fine Arts Director position as of July 1st, 2023. Not only will this take away administrative positions but also 14 educator positions could be cut if safety levy fails. Another proposition under the failure of the voted safety levy is an increase of extracurricular fees to a start of $150. This would be coming no longer just out of the district’s pocket, but the students’. While scholarships and pay-it-forward mechanisms would exist, this is still a significant increase from the average $90 activity fee that is currently required.

Our administrative positions in Bozeman are already at stake, which raises suspicion on how this could eventually affect the arts over time. Arts being cut, after all, are no new thing to Montana. In Troy, their music program was completely cut due to staffing issues as of 2022. Local student Dayton Johnson is now forced to drive 20 miles just to be able to participate in a music program. The original program consisted of 87 students, a fair amount considering the county has only 2,614 people. The feedback to this decision was entirely negative, and the music students of Troy were devastated and angry. In Johnson’s words, “I personally was infuriated. And many others were too. A lot of the past band members don’t really enjoy school like they did anymore because of there being no band.” This truly reflects the effect of music and the arts on a school. It’s an essential part of the school and many students feel passion for it.

This leads me to our own art programs, something that I myself partake in. At GHS alone we offer several art programs of different varieties, such as jewelry, ceramics, graphic design, metal working, art history and drawing. Our music program also has a wide variety of choirs, bands and orchestras. These programs allow students to rise through the ranks, starting with a beginner program and going all the way up to advanced level music. Our own marching band, despite being a new program, placed 3rd last year in a Pullman, WA marching band competition and 2nd this year in the North West Marching Band Festival for the AA class. Members of the GHS Orchestra toured in Europe over the summer. Our theater program has won awards at Missoula’s Thespian Festival with the student written show “How to Ride a Bike” by Ember Morrill winning Outstanding Student Directed Performance and Lesl Schoenberg winning Outstanding Actress Performance for her role in the show.

Are we to just become another statistic of schools that have become deprived of the arts? Our school is already so promising with our music programs traveling across the country and even across oceans to share our high school’s talent. If we take that from our school, we cut down on the student body’s creativity and take straight from the students of Gallatin High School and our community. We are not yet fully established and have not yet flourished in the community we have. It’s well known throughout the school that we cannot avoid these budget cuts, but I certainly hope that these cuts will not damage our community.