Various Bonita Vista High (BVH) students find the Visual And Performing Arts (VAPA) classes as a way to express themselves and learn creative skills. The VAPA program includes various aspects of the arts including art, theater, drama, choir and more. VAPA classes are one of the crucial parts of students’ A-G requirements in order to graduate high school.

“[I think that] visual arts, drawing [and] painting, are an important part of [students’] curriculum(s), it’s one of the UC or CSU entrance requirements; one year of fine arts,” Beginning art, advanced art and Advanced Placement (AP) drawing teacher Nicolas Braunn said. “My field is required for UC and CSU entrance, even for Compact for Success.”

However, not a wide enough variety of VAPA classes are available at several schools, including BVH. Several BVH students and teachers find that the school does not cover as many VAPA classes as they could.

“I would say that there aren’t as many [VAPA classes] as I’d like. There’s only one teacher [at BVH] and there’s only one AP art class and one advanced art class. That’s only for six periods,” senior Sara Salgado-Garcia said.  “So [there’s] not really enough VAPA classes at BVH at all.”

According to Salgado-Garcia and Braunn, some students and teachers believe that when students don’t have access to VAPA classes, their success is halted. Pursuing a talent such as art or dance may cause some to believe the school gives less importance to VAPA classes than other ones.

“I just feel that students are five times less likely to drop out if they are in at least a performing arts creative course. Whether that be theater, show choir, digital media or auto shop,”  10th grade English accelerated and theater production teacher Rosa Sias said. “I think when students have access to those creative courses, they gain the skills that they could use for future employment. They gain confidence.”

There is a challenge to schools offering all VAPA classes due to the amount of yearly funds available for VAPA classes. Students and teachers believe that a reason for not being able to cover all classes is due to low employment of teachers. Sias explains how there is a constant low supply of VAPA classes available. 

“I don’t think there’s ever enough VAPA courses. When I say that, I think we can definitely expand, especially in the theater program, considering that there is only one theater production course,” Sias said. “I’d like to see a beginning course if not a course on improvisation. But I would imagine that you know, choir would like another course and dance would like another course.”

VAPA classes tend to not get enough money put into their yearly funds. Most schools have a larger funding amount when it comes to sports as opposed to the VAPA classes. Salgado-Garcia explains how she agrees that sports have a higher budget for expenses compared to VAPA classes.

“I agree [that sports has a larger funding]. I mean, look at the stadium they just built, and yet we only have one art class. There’s only one art class out of all of the classrooms here [at BVH],” Salgado-Garcia said.

Not only students think that VAPA classes are underfunded but teachers as well. Teachers find that VAPA classes are underfunded for many reasons. One reason would be that schools mainly have a bigger budget for sports than VAPA classes do a whole year.

“A good starting point would be to create one more class of beginning art, take a little bit of students from my classes, and have five classes of fewer students. But the issue for the district is that they would have to pay a teacher extra money,” Braunn said.

Some may even find that the underfunding of VAPA classes and the minimum amount of VAPA classes that they have for schools can make students feel under-appreciated. This can be heavily demotivating and directly impacts each student at BVH.

“I think for the students who actually do care about art, they would thrive and be able to do more projects. I just think that each school prioritizes different subjects and I think Bonita focuses mainly on sports and I don’t really see as much going into VAPA,” Salgado-Garcia said. “I would like to see an improvement for the next generation of students so they can get a better experience than students in the most recent years.”