As arts funding boosts many local schools, PVUSD faces questions over spending and transparency

After three years of voter-approved arts education funding, Santa Cruz County’s public school districts say they’ve expanded arts programming, increased part-time staff to full-time and brought new opportunities to students like dance workshops or creativity clubs.

But at least one district has struggled – Pajaro Valley Unified School District – and some teachers have voiced concerns about how Proposition 28 dollars are being spent.

Mountain and Pacific elementary school districts, Santa Cruz City Schools and San Lorenzo Valley Unified say three full years of Prop 28 funding has led to growth in their arts programming. 

Pacific Elementary Superintendent Eric Gross said the estimated $28,000 the single-school district in Davenport receives each year from Prop 28 has had a positive impact on students. 

“We’ve expanded our arts education in terms of the number of kids who are getting it, but also in terms of the kinds of arts they’re getting,” he said. “[Prop 28] has made it so schools or districts that are not funded nearly as well as everyone else, like Pacific, that we can offer the kinds of things that the wealthier districts have been doing.”

California voters in 2022 approved Prop 28, which allocates 1% of the state’s education funding to the arts annually. The law provides funds to schools based on their total enrollment and their share of low-income students, and requires that schools, not school districts, decide how to spend the money, with some restrictions. 

California legislators are advancing a bill (Assembly Bill 2440) meant to clarify how to spend the money after they say many districts across the state claimed the law was unclear, which led to challenges in how to use the funds within the required three-year window. 

Mountain and Pacific elementary school districts, Santa Cruz City Schools and San Lorenzo Valley school district officials told Lookout they had no issues spending their funds, but PVUSD has faced some challenges. 

In September 2025, district officials told the school board that they were at risk of losing $458,547.72 in Prop 28 funding by the end of the fiscal year. Deepika Srivastava, the district’s science tech engineering arts math (STEAM) director, told Lookout last week that the district ultimately spent all the funds minus an estimated $35,000 it was prohibited from spending after PVUSD shuttered its Virtual Academy school in 2025. The district receives about $2.9 million annually in Prop 28 funds. 

Srivastava, who has been in the STEAM role for one year, said the district had been struggling to spend the unspent $460,000 because of a lack of qualified candidates for its open arts teaching positions and because of the Prop 28 requirement that school districts and charter schools with 500 or more students must spend at least 80% of the funds on hiring staff. 

Additionally, Prop 28 prohibits schools from using the money to replace existing arts funding and instead directs schools to “supplement, not supplant.” Each year of funds has a three-year window to spend it, which means the money received for the 2024 award expired at the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year on June 30. 

Several PVUSD teachers told Lookout last week that they have serious concerns about how PVUSD has spent Prop 28 dollars, including not posting open positions, paying teachers who aren’t new with Prop 28 money and laying off positions of teachers hired with Prop 28 money. Teachers have also said the district hasn’t been transparent about its spending. 

Bobby Marchessault, a music and theater arts teacher at Watsonville Charter School of the Arts, said he’s repeatedly asked district officials to describe their progress on spending down funds. 

“At almost every [board] meeting, I have said, ‘Can you please update us on where that landed?’” he said, about the unspent money. “And we’ve got no updates.”

Longtime Aptos High art teacher Veronique Marks told Lookout that she hasn’t seen an improvement in arts programming at the high school since the 2023-24 school year, or when Prop 28 first started distributing funds to schools: “It’s actually gotten worse.” 

Marks pointed to the layoff of the school’s video production teacher, Joel Domhoff, who taught more than 100 students in his popular courses. She said the school hired a dance teacher in the past two years, but because the district made that hire mid-year, when students’ schedules were already set, enrollment was low, and the position was eliminated in spring 2025. 

Marks has taught in the district since 1997 and at Aptos High since 2002. She was surprised to see last year that her paycheck, which had always stated “general fund” as its source, began listing Prop 28 as its source.

Marks, Marchessault and other teachers told Lookout that the district should rehire a visual and performing arts (VAPA) coordinator after the district reassigned the prior coordinator and didn’t replace her. Srivastava took over the arts as STEAM director, and Marks and Marchessault said it’s too many responsibilities for one person to manage for in a district of PVUSD’s size. 

“We had the expertise to be able to strategize and to make sure schools were using their Prop 28 funds,” said Marchessault. “And [the VAPA coordinator] was doing an excellent job at it.” 

Srivastava told Lookout that the district has done a great job spending Prop 28 funds and that she’s “amazed” at what it’s been able to do. When asked, she did not provide specific examples of how a school’s programming was bolstered by Prop 28 funds, nor did she respond to requests to provide data showing how funds were spent by the schools. Other school districts, like Santa Cruz City Schools, share spending data for each school publicly on their websites, while PVUSD currently shares its 2024-25 Prop 28 one-page summary but only for the entire district. 

Sarah Brothers, arts education director for Arts Council Santa Cruz County, an arts advocacy group that offers grants for the arts, told Lookout she’s heard concerns from many PVUSD teachers about how funds have been spent and has struggled to work with district officials. 

“It doesn’t seem like there is much transparency or willingness to partner,” she said. “I do work across the state with other statewide arts education agencies, I’ve seen a lot of creative ways in which Prop 28 funding can be implemented effectively and legally, and just the fact that I don’t really understand what’s going on [with PVUSD spending], it does concern me.”

Srivastava told Lookout that to ensure the district continues spending down its Prop 28 funds, officials are increasing their networking to hire qualified candidates, and they’ve hired consultants to work on their district arts plan. She added that she thinks that if AB 2440 were to be successful, it would be beneficial for the district. 

“I believe this bill will help us in greater implementation of our dollars,” she said. “I’m really happy the state is looking at this. It really is a good step in the right direction.”

Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools Faris Sabbah said in a statement to Lookout that districts have faced challenges such as a shortage of qualified teachers, allocations that aren’t enough to hire staff and how to comply with the “supplement, not supplant” rule. He said AB 2440 “could make Prop 28 funding more practical and effective to use.” 

“At the same time, it is essential that the final legislation preserve the central purpose of Prop 28: expanding arts education for students,” he said. “Greater flexibility should support that goal, not allow Prop 28 funding to replace existing programs, staffing or financial commitments.” 

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