Cramped into a storage closet inside CSArts’ cafeteria lies the school library. The small room holds a few chairs, a couple of coffee tables, a love seat, and a desk. Bookshelves line the farthest wall. Despite being labeled The Creative Writing Library, it is, in reality, a supply closet with bookcases—open only during limited office hours. The books are also only available to Creative Writing students, leaving the rest of the school without access to on-site reading materials.
In an interview, Mrs. Read explained why CSArts has not prioritized establishing a formal library space.
“Libraries are very expensive—a middle-tier library would likely cost $500K+—and the truth is that we continue to be significantly underfunded for our arts program. That is always the top priority,” she said. “We work to encourage all families to donate to their CFA as well as expand the ask to our large-scale donors.”
Although research widely supports the impact of free reading materials on literacy, vocabulary, and academic performance, Mrs. Read emphasized that the school is not currently concerned about student reading scores as we already out perform the California average. She recommended that students take advantage of the Duarte public library that is about a ten minute walk from the CSArts campus if they are in need of a book not available at school.
“I wish the school put in more funding to establish a real library. I know where the library is but I never use it because it’s so small and always packed. I think it’s also unfair that it only caters to Creative Writing students,” said an anonymous Popular Music senior.
CSArts has onboarded more students in the past years, so much so that conservatories like Creative Writing and Acting have had to relocate to empty DHS classrooms. In a recent survey sent out by the school, it asked students to rank how they would like to prioritize new additions to the school. Some of the things on that list included creating new office space for administrators. So, why is the focus on space for administrators and not students?
Read responded, “You’ve stumbled upon a topic the admin team and I discuss all the time. DHS has been very generous in sharing space with us and that has allowed us to keep our Conservatory class sizes lower than academic classes. We could keep everyone on our campus during Conservatory, but that would cause us to raise class sizes in Conservatory up towards 30:1 and would mean fewer class options for students. Our ultimate goal is to build more permanent structures on our campus, perhaps on the field.
But like I mentioned earlier, this would cost millions and we are not there yet. But, we’re taking lots of steps in our Foundation and Development offices to hopefully make this possible one day.”
Read said that it’s possible that CSArts could “perhaps,” include a library in the building plans for a structure, but she said, “all the metrics (school test scores, grade data, matriculation data, LCAP goals, committee notes, survey data, etc.) does not indicate that students are disadvantaged because we don’t have a traditional library. I would be hard pressed to convince any of our boards to divert funds from our other initiatives, when there is a public library within walking distance of the campus. To your point about growth - students continue to be interested in our school, which is a good thing.”
Read added that CSArts-SGV wants to serve as many students as possible, “but you’re right, at some point we’re just out of room. Increasing enrollment does several things for us, namely: it increases our state funding and our parent CFA funding, it’s job security for our amazing staff, it keeps our program working with DUSD as they need support in keeping their enrollment up due to state-wide concerns about declining enrollment, and increasing enrollment brings more diversity to our campus and flushes out the smaller conservatory programs.
Read said the school experiences 4% attrition every year, which means CSArts overenrolls at the start of Fall Semester and then numbers settle by October. “I’m sure you have felt the difference on campus? We started with 1060 and we are now at 1019. While growing enrollment is exciting because it means we’re in demand, stable enrollment is the true goal. Stable enrollment is what big-time donors, grant programs, and banks want to see before they invest in us, and it is those types of relationships that will eventually allow us to build more permanent structures and more state-of-art art spaces.”
I asked the Pop Music Senior how they felt about the increased onboarding of students and the current facilities of the school. Speaking anonymously, they said, “I understand why they need to add more students for funding but there are so many things that go unattended like the plumbing, wifi, and lack of library for example that it’s unfair to us as students.”
Funding continues to be an ongoing issue for CSArts. If you are able to contribute to the CFA, it goes directly towards building a better campus for all students.
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