Budget cuts at SLO schools threaten ‘the backbone of music education’ | Opinion
Keep music alive in SLO
As partners serving SLO County schoolchildren, we’re deeply concerned by the cuts to school music funding for 2026–27, as reported in The Tribune.
The Performing Arts Center, Foundation for the PAC and Cal Poly Arts work together to remove barriers to student arts access. We keep costs low, subsidize school performances, underwrite student matinees and bring professional artists into classrooms. While we shoulder much of this work, we cannot absorb all costs alone. These programs depend on continued district partnership to survive.
National research shows that students engaged in the arts have higher attendance and stronger engagement — indicators of academic success. Performing in the world-class PAC measurably builds confidence, discipline and motivation. From personal experience, we know students carry these gains back into their classrooms.
Though described as a modest cut, this represents the backbone of music education across grade levels. Its loss will immediately limit access, particularly for students without other means.
Music education is not enrichment for a few; it is opportunity for many. We urge district leaders to find resources to preserve this vital investment in our students and our community. Ryan Gruss, Performing Arts Center Ron Regier, Foundation for the PAC Molly Clark, Cal Poly Arts
Board’s support for Diablo extension premature
As a lifelong resident of San Luis Obispo County and a member of a pioneer family with deep roots here, I am deeply disturbed by the SLO County Board of Supervisors’ recent letter to the California Legislature supporting a 20-year extension of Diablo Canyon’s operation. This action was premature and deeply concerning. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Diablo Canyon Unit 1 is the third most embrittled reactor vessel in the nation. Reactor vessel embrittlement presents serious safety risks and warrants careful, transparent evaluation. Yet key information remains unavailable. Final analyses on reactor embrittlement and seismic safety have not been released. Endorsing extended operation without these reports contradicts basic principles of public safety and responsible governance. Moreover, Senate Bill 846 authorizes only a five-year extension — not 20. The necessity of Diablo Canyon’s continued operation beyond that period has not been clearly demonstrated. Most troubling, the board issued its letter without seeking meaningful public input. Decisions with decades-long consequences should not be made without community consultation. I urge state leaders to delay any endorsement of extended operation until safety reviews are complete and the people of San Luis Obispo County have been fully heard.
Molly Johnson
Templeton
Save the monarchs
The monarch butterfly is an icon with enduring strength and tenacity while flying thousands of miles. Sadly wildfires, land development and greedy people are killing the Western monarch. When developers flatten fields of milkweed and wild flowers they should be required to mitigate and reseed, but they don’t. One important thing we must do as a county is ban the sale of tropical milkweed. I’ve seen it in local nurseries.
The main peril of tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is that its year-round growth in warm climates disrupts monarch butterfly migration and promotes the buildup of the fatal OE parasite (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha), leading to sick monarchs that don’t migrate or die, causing population declines. Unlike native milkweeds that die back, tropical milkweed provides continuous breeding grounds, trapping monarchs in a cycle of infection and no migration. Other counties have now banned the sale of tropical milkweed.
San Luis Obispo County needs to do the same. Local nurseries should only sell native milkweed such as Narrow leaf. Ethel “Tink” Landers Arroyo Grande
Truth-telling
For the sake of maintaining some semblance of truth and reality (remember them?), let’s explore two areas that drastically need cleaning up: (1) Will somebody please tell “Catatonic Don” to stop referring to his predecessor as “Sleepy Joe.” (2) Among the Liar-In-Chief’s more outrageous falsehoods is the one about “inheriting” the nation’s worst inflation rate in over seven decades. FACT: The most dangerous out-of-control inflation (over 10%) during those years was (surprise!) under a Republican president (Nixon) in the mid-1970s. (3) He grotesquely misrepresents the rate of left-wing threats and violence in America as being higher than that of right-wing threats and violence. Gene Strohl
San Luis Obispo