Saving the “A” in OCSA

Adrienne Espinoza - August 18th, 2024

Just four years ago in 2020, the future of OCSA stood on shaky ground with their renewal under Santa Ana Unified standing on the edge of a knife. Without a secured authorizer for its charter, the school as we know it would cease to exist. That was when OCSA’s community of students, parents, and administrators came together to rally for its future. Together, they appealed to the Orange County Board of Education to take over as their new charter authorizer, and everything was all right.

Now here we are four years later. OCSA is thriving, and student academic performance is through the roof. According to USnews.com’s 2024 ranking of top schools in the state, OCSA earned 27th place. This year alone, as can be seen on an infographic released by the school, the graduating class of 2024 had an average GPA  of 3.9 with 86% of students having taken an AP course and a whopping 98% of them being accepted to a higher institution of education. 

With academic statistics like these, parents will find any possible way to get their child into OCSA. Especially since unlike a college prep school, which typically has high tuition fees, there is no money needed for admission at OCSA—but that’s where the problems arise. 

With academic performance being so incredibly high, what could possibly be the problem? Well, notice that it is academics that are in the spotlight. With all the attention and limelight being placed on that area, we neglect the true identity of the school—the arts. 

Funding for all seventeen of OCSA’s arts conservatories is down again. According to the most recent parent funding meeting in May, the 2023-2024 year has been the worst on record with only 39% of all parents actually following through and fully funding their CFA (Conservatory Funding Agreement), and 3.3% of parents exceeding the needed amount. This means that over half of all OCSA parents did not fulfill the amount of money needed to fund their child’s conservatory program and its staff. Parent conservatory donations are vital funds to not only run conservatory, but fund things like teacher and director salaries, OCSA facilities, and administration, to name a few.

“Maybe people forget that we exist because of the arts,” says Dr. Maria Lazarova, the Dean of Arts at OCSA. “It’s important for people to know that a lack of contribution to the arts endangers the existence of the entire school.” 

This is absolutely true, as the only reason OCSA has a charter in the first place is because it is an art school. “Parents negatively impact conservatory when the emphasis is on academics,” said one of the school’s administrators during the Parent Funding Meeting.

Even the majority of 200 students polled randomly on campus find their conservatory enjoyable and feel that the academics are a bit excessive, with an overwhelming 80.5% of them claiming that academics are more stressful than conservatory. The data collected shows various reasons as to why this is the case. 

Most students find the large amount of homework/assignments and such little time to complete them stressful. Some feel that OCSA has an “above average” standard that students are expected to meet. Another factor is the pressure to get into a top college. Lastly, some students do find conservatory to be stressful, but since it is their passion, they generally find it more enjoyable than academics. Many students also agree their conservatory is more understanding and accommodating when it comes to handling large amounts of work. 

Now we must face the consequence of this neglect: conservatory time, yet again, will be cut short. The new bell schedule for the 2024-2025 school year shows a reduction of 20 minutes in daily conservatory hours. While this does not seem like a lot, it all adds up to 80 minutes of conservatory time being lost each week. That is 80 minutes less each week of instruction time, rehearsal time, work time, and less money earned by our amazing conservatory teachers. Additionally, conservatory will also be ending a few weeks earlier. Overall, the impact is less conservatory.

When asked how they feel about the reduced amount of conservatory hours, most of the directors interviewed (not all of them were) said more or less the same thing: that it creates a major challenge when trying to give the students enough instruction or work time.

“I wish that we could keep the conservatory schedule the same, because there’s a lot of things that we teach that require time,” replied Mr. Orullian, director of FTV. “I understand the reason behind it and of course there are changes that happen; we’ll have to adapt to that.” 

It is quite likely right now that some students are probably happy with this reduction of time, as it now allows them to go home and complete their homework earlier, but think about it—if OCSA did not try so hard to appeal to the academic demands of parents, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much homework and academic pressure. Students should be academically motivated because they themselves want it and not because they feel that they have to. 

This now brings us back to our main conflict: the parents who either know they can pledge the full amount of money, but choose not to, and the parents who send their kids to OCSA as a free  alternative to a college prep school. 

“I think the desire, this overwhelming desire to get into top universities….it’s more academically motivated. OSCA has become this vehicle to get into these top colleges,” said Dr. Lazarova. “Maybe because OCSA is big and successful, people have the mindset, ‘Well I don’t need to contribute because someone else will.’”

So now the question is, what can we do? Well, we do what we did four years ago—we come together and fight for OCSA’s future. Students, it is time to go and talk to your parents; to ask them how much they are contributing and if they can afford to fully pledge their CFA. It is time to tell them that we are an academic AND arts school, and that one cannot exist without the other. 

For OCSA Administration, please rethink your messaging when it comes to how you would like to present OCSA to parents and the community at large. Tailoring OCSA to be an academic first school disrespects OCSA’s roots and appeals to parents who are only interested in the academics. The messaging needs to reflect OCSA as an arts AND academics school. Also, working with parents in developing more programs to offer more solutions on how they can fund their CFA would greatly help.

For parents reading this, please understand the severity of OCSA’s situation and understand that we cannot do this without you. Thank you so much to all of you who support and fund your child’s conservatory. To all of the parents who put their time and effort in being involved in making OCSA a better school, we need more of you!

We now bring this to a close with another powerful quote from Dr. Lazarova: “Without parent donations, conservatory doesn’t exist. Without conservatory, OCSA doesn’t exist…it’s who we are; it’s our identity.”