Santa Barbara Teen Star Naomi Jane Voigt, Chloe Voigt, founder of teen theater group YouthClusive, and Kian Strenn, San Marcos High School ASB President, speak out against the proposed school district cuts to music and theater programs in the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina.

Naomi Jane Voigt explains how she felt when school board member Bill Banning said that the public comments were “taking up” the board’s time.

Naomi Jane said she felt “silenced and diminished by an older man on the board.”

“In that moment, us students, at least I felt, my power in that moment was taken away,” Naomi Jane said. “My voice got taken away. My passion got taken away. I felt squashed.”

Naomi Jane won Santa Barbara Teen Star earlier this year.

The board voted to send layoff notices to 85 teachers, in an eight-hour meeting that stretched until nearly 3 a.m. two weeks ago. Teachers the next day received preliminary pink slips, including music and theater teachers.

The district plans to rescind some of the layoff notices once the California budget is released in April.

Chloe Voigt also expresses her dismay in the podcast.

“I am just offended by the fact that their job is to listen to us and make school a better place for us, but they don’t want to listen to us,” Chloe said.

Kian Strenn said: “It seems that they just lost perspective on what it is that really matters at schools, which is clearly the students. The biggest impact on students is what you do with the teachers. It’s not the administration. It’s not the people at the district level. It’s the teachers.”

Chloe also shares about her YouthClusive arts and theater program that she started at 13 years old. Naomi Jane talks about her experience winning Santa Barbara Teen Star and how she is using that platform to speak out for all students in Santa Barbara and beyond.

Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.