For years, San Marin High School in California had boasted a commitment to journalism, supporting a newspaper, multiple journalism classes and a constant flow of students showing interest in not only the courses, but also the newspaper. Ask educators and they'll say that it seemed like things were going just fine with the program. But suddenly last spring, school administrators, in an effort to save money, deemed journalism an expendable course and it was quickly dropped from the curriculum, much to the shock and horror of several students and faculty.

"I think this was so unexpected that everybody went crazy," said Ronnie Campagna, a teacher at the school. "The program was very popular, the students were putting out a good paper and several of them needed the courses to prepare for journalism degrees in college. This really came as a surprise and everyone, not just the journalists, was affected."

San Marin's is just one of several stories of high school journalism programs closing around the country due to higher than normal budget cuts on all levels: state, city and community. While educators argue this is happening all over the country, the size of California's budget crisis and the high number of high school programs in the state make California's high school journalism woes stand out. And media officials, worried that the trend will continue, see no solutions in sight.

"Schools everywhere are hurting and when they lose money, something needs to go," said Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. "Unfortunately, journalism seems to be one of those programs that is the first to go. And that's a shame, because interest in journalism seems to be growing nationwide."

According to the San Francisco-based Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, there were 1,644 journalism courses offered in the state in 1996. In 2003, there were only 1,512, a drop that is bigger than any other subject, according to educators.

"It's been dropping steadily and it's gotten worse over the past few years," said Steve O'Donoghue, program manager for the Center. "The scariest part about it is that I think we all expect it to be worse this year and next."

And for each journalism course that's cancelled, there's a story. O'Donoghue said he has heard of students protesting to get courses back, students starting their own newspapers with the help of faculty and stories of outside media organizations getting involved on behalf of students and journalism faculty.

San Marin has a story of its own. After the program was cut, students and faculty got involved, writing and pleading to the school board to reinstate the program with little success. However, once the ACLU got involved and complained that dropping the program violated First Amendment rights, the board scraped up money to reinstate the course and the newspaper. But teachers and students said the program is now a shadow of what it used to be. Class is scheduled at the end of the day, a new teacher with little experience was brought in and the quality of the school's newspaper has suffered.

"It's a tough situation," Campagna said. "We know this is happening, but we're hitting walls when we try and figure out what the problem is. And there's no way to solve the problem until we know what it is."

Most media and school officials agree that the main problem is simply budget constraints. Most high schools get 80 percent of the budget from state and federal sources and those sources have simply dried up over the past few years. Meanwhile, technology continues to push journalism, making it more expensive to run programs. And administrators dispute the fact that journalism has such a high interest in high schools.

"We did a survey to get a sense of what programs would be missed and journalism wasn't even close to the top," said an administrator for a Los Angeles-based school that would only talk if he and his school remained anonymous. "We haven't had to cut it yet, but if cuts need to be made, there wouldn't be much of a decision."

There are factors leading to the closures other than budget constraints and a perceived lack of popularity. Assessment testing is getting harder and several schools aren't meeting requirements. When that happens, high schools tend to introduce more remedial or basic courses and cut elective courses, like journalism.

Plus, graduation and college entry requirements are constantly changing and there is a fear that more and more student counselors are steering students away from journalism and into more general courses to help prep for college.

"There's really no way to fight a school on this, especially if they need to rework a budget," O'Donoghue said. "It puts the school in a tough spot as well. But they need to realize that there is interest in journalism among high school students and they shouldn't count it out."

And there are programs to help. O'Donoghue's center works with local schools and districts to revive journalism programs. The center provides funding and training to get journalism back on track at area schools. And O'Donoghue says there are other programs out there across the country.

"Money is tight in the schools, so these programs are in jeopardy," he said. "All we can do is hope that administrators start to see how important journalism is to their students and their community."