Participation in orchestral and other music programs in the Davis Joint Unified School District is booming.

The success of the music programs has been credited to a convergence of teacher commitment and the public's desire to see programs flourish by approving a parcel tax.

That parcel tax will expire next year when Davis residents will again vote whether to keep music programs funded.

To date, the number of students participating in a music program at the elementary school level – a good predictor for later participation in music programs at the junior and high school level – has increased 20 percent since 2005, according to school district figures.

At the elementary school level, 965 of 1,855 students in fourth through sixth grade are participating in a music program this school year.

At the high school level, 20 percent of enrolled students participate in a music program. A total of 142 of those students participate in a growing orchestra program.

The number of Davis High School students that are part of one of three orchestras there has grown 2 1/2 times since 2001.

Led by orchestra director Angelo Moreno, the high school features a full orchestra, a chamber orchestra and a baroque ensemble.

A full-fledged baroque ensemble at a public high school is a rarity. Baroque ensembles perform on smaller string instruments, with slightly different shaped and sized bows. The performance of such instruments is considered a specialty in the classical music realm.

The robust numbers at Davis schools are an outgrowth of a crisis that the district faced in early 2008. The district announced that budgetary constraints would necessitate cutting back school music programs and laying off music teachers.

Those cutbacks would have deeply affected the elementary music school program, a key feeder to junior and high school groups, said Moreno, who also conducts a junior high school orchestra for the district.

"Without the feeder program at the elementary level it was only a matter of time before it all dried up," he said. "When you cut the feeder program off, a music program has about three or four years before it collapses."

Parents and members of the Davis community managed to raise $240,000 by the end of an eight-week deadline the district gave residents and booster groups to make up for the shortfall.

"We had to organize overnight. We had fundraiser after fundraiser," Moreno said. "It came down to the last day when there were scenes like me walking from my car to music rehearsal and parents running up and stuffing $500 checks into my pocket."

Later that year, Davis voters passed Measure W, a supplemental parcel tax meant to make up for a $1.5 million decrease in state funds.

Some of those lost funds would have paid for music programs and teaching positions. Seventy five percent of Davis residents voted in favor of Measure W.

But that parcel tax expires next June. A renewal of the parcel tax comes up for a mail-in vote in February, and must be reauthorized by a two-thirds majority to preserve the funded programs.

If the measure does not pass, the district will need to cut $6.5 million from its 2012-13 budget, with layoffs tendered to teachers by March 15.

That measure is expected to pass, according to results of a recent poll by Ziegler Associates and Smith Johnson Research, said Hiram Jackson, former head of the Davis Schools Orchestra Music Association. In that poll of 400 Davis residents conducted last month, 72 percent of voters indicated they would reauthorize the parcel tax.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call the Bee's Edward Ortiz, (916) 321-1071.

• Read more articles by Edward Ortiz