Dear Editor,
Culver City Unified School District says it wants the Robert Frost Auditorium (located on the high school campus and used district wide) to generate more revenue.
At the same time, district leadership is considering eliminating the very positions responsible for operating the Frost: the Technical Director and the District Arts Coordinator, who also serves as the Frost’s General Manager.
It’s a baffling contradiction.
The Frost is not just a school auditorium. It is a fully equipped performing arts venue that requires professional management to operate safely and successfully. Lighting systems, sound systems, stage rigging, productions, contracts, scheduling, student performances, and community rentals do not run themselves.
The Technical Director manages the complex technical operations of the theater. The General Manager coordinates everything from student productions to outside rentals that bring in revenue for the district.
Eliminate those positions and the Frost does not become more profitable. It becomes harder — if not impossible — to operate.
Yet this is precisely the direction the district appears to be considering.
The proposed cuts would also eliminate the District Arts Coordinator position — the one role responsible for supporting arts education across Culver City schools.
That decision would send a troubling message in a district that has long promoted itself as a leader in arts education. Culver City’s arts programs have earned state and regional recognition and helped define the district’s identity. Families move here in part because the district is known as a place where the arts matter.
Programs like these don’t sustain themselves by accident. They require leadership, coordination, and infrastructure.
Now that infrastructure is on the chopping block.
To be fair, the school board is facing serious financial pressure. Districts across California are grappling with declining enrollment and uncertainty around state education funding, including delays in Proposition 98 allocations. The district must reduce spending.
But the current proposal reveals a deeper question about priorities.
The teachers’ union has urged the board to focus cuts on positions that are not “student-facing.” On paper, the District Arts Coordinator/General Manager of the Frost and the Technical Director of the Frost may appear administrative. In reality, they support thousands of students every year — from theater and music performances to assemblies, district events, and community partnerships that expand opportunities for students.
Remove them, and those experiences do not simply continue as before.
Is district management contemplating turning over management of the Frost to an outside operator, thinking they will generate more revenue?
If that becomes the district’s strategy, the community should ask an obvious question: when school facilities start being treated as revenue centers, where do students fall in the priority list?
The district has long maintained that the Frost Auditorium exists first and foremost for CCUSD students, with outside rentals serving as a secondary source of income.
But if maximizing revenue becomes the primary goal, will students remain the priority users?
Would we consider charging student athletic groups to use the fields they practice on? Of course not. Those facilities exist to support student learning and student life.
The same should be true for the Frost.
Culver City cannot simultaneously claim to value arts education, expect the Frost to generate revenue, and eliminate the staff who make both possible.
At some point, the school district will have to decide whether the arts are truly part of its educational
J. Nazarian
