As Schools Vote on Budgets, Theatre Programs Should Not Be at Risk
by Chris Peterson
April usually brings budget voting season, which means school boards all over the country are once again deciding what stays, what goes, and what they are willing to call “necessary.”
It is the time of year when districts start talking about hard choices, painful realities, and shared sacrifice. And somehow, year after year, theatre programs keep ending up on the chopping block. They should not.
If you are a board of education looking at cuts for the coming school year, leave theatre alone.
We are already seeing what this looks like. Last year, in Hillsboro, Oregon, Century High School did not offer theater-related elective classes. The district said after-school theatre will remain, but confirmed that school-day electives are gone.
In Clark County, Nevada, it was reported that all 284 schools are dealing with budget and staffing cuts tied to projected enrollment declines for 2026–27. That same reporting showed families and schools already fighting to protect arts programs, including theatre and musical theatre, because everyone knows what tends to become vulnerable the minute districts start tightening budgets.
And that is the problem. Theatre is still treated like an easy cut. A nice extra. Something schools can live without. They cannot.
Not because every student in drama club is headed to Broadway. That is always the lazy comeback from people who want to minimize arts education. Theatre matters because it teaches the exact things school systems claim they value: communication, collaboration, confidence, adaptability, empathy, public speaking, leadership, and problem solving.
Once a program is cut, it is rarely as easy to rebuild as administrators like to pretend. You do not just restore a line item and magically get the same program back. You lose teachers. You lose momentum. You lose trust. Families stop believing the program will still be there next year, and students stop investing in something that feels temporary.
What makes this more frustrating is that local arts programs are already operating in a wider climate of instability. Education Week reported this month that President Trump’s latest budget proposal would cut more than $8 billion from federal K–12 programs. Whether Congress accepts that proposal or not, it contributes to a culture where arts education feels perpetually disposable.
So no, theatre is not decorative. It is not fluff. It is not the cute little program you save only when the numbers are good. It is education.
And if school boards want to keep talking about the whole child, college and career readiness, and building confident communicators, then they need to stop treating theatre like an expendable luxury and start funding it like it matters.
Because it does.