Santa Barbara Students Protest Potential Cuts to Arts and Music Positions

Teachers were pink-slipped during the week, so students rallied over the weekend. 

Angry about potential cuts to arts and music positions in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, a crowd of teachers, kids, and parents protested at West Beach on Saturday. 

Students’ frustration over potential reductions in force, and gratitude for their teachers, were expressed through song on the sidewalk along Cabrillo Boulevard.

Students sang, danced, and played instruments, and the crowd chanted to a beat of “We love music, we love arts,” and “Save music, save arts.” A group of students, at one point, harmonized to Alexandra Olsavsky’s “What Happens When a Woman.” When not singing, they took up the microphone to advocate for arts and music, saying that they benefit their self-confidence, teamwork, and mental health. Many said that the arts and music have shaped their life.

Tensions have been at a fever pitch ever since last Tuesday’s very late school board meeting, which bled into 3 a.m. on Wednesday. After three hours of public comment, the school board voted to send precautionary layoff notices to 85 teachers, including arts and music positions. Teachers received those notices the next day. The district, in total, is trying to cut about $2.8 million in teacher salaries.

The protest built on Tuesday’s momentum. It was small, with only about 30 attendees, but it radiated energy and, despite their frustration with the notices, joy.

“I use music by writing songs and listening to music because it is therapeutic,” said Naomi Jane Voigt, the 2025 Santa Barbara Teen Star and a San Marcos High School student.

 

“It helped me get through those hard times. The people within the choir programs and the teachers offered me a safe space so I could do my music,” she continued. “Without those programs, I really wouldn’t be doing music today, nor would I have the confidence to speak out.”

Although the district plans to take back the majority of the notices — and the board promised on Tuesday to cut other positions first before targeting the arts and music — the threat of losing those positions looms. Arts, music, and theater teachers across the district received pink slips last week.  

Students, echoing School Boardmember Celeste Kafri, who spoke in defense of teachers last Tuesday, called on the district to cut management instead of teachers. The district, however, says that four management positions are on the chopping block, including the chief technology officer in the superintendent’s cabinet. Since 2020, the district has cut four management positions.

Students and teachers do not seem to be placable, though. They created a petition to “save art and music instruction” in the district, which has collected more than 1,500 signatures. On Saturday, the group reiterated their promise that they “will not stop” speaking out against cuts to the arts.