Former B.C. teacher who inspired School of Rock warns against VSB music program cuts

'Music and art are those subjects that create citizenship in a school ... a sense of belonging'

By Liam Britten, CBC News Posted: Jun 07, 2016 8:58 PM PT

Original article here with audio interview.

On Tuesday, June 7, parents, students and others rallied outside VSB offices in Vancouver to oppose cuts to music education. (@Jonathan_Girard/Twitter)

Parents, students and musicians gathered outside the Vancouver School Board offices Tuesday with musical instruments in their hands to stage a "silent orchestra" in protest of proposed cuts to music programs.

For five of the past seven years, the Vancouver School Board has threatened to cut the band and strings program for the district, and Hans Fenger says that would be a mistake.

Fenger is a former music teacher from Langley, B.C., whose story served as the inspiration for the 2003 movieSchool of Rock.

• VSB budget cuts would eliminate 200 jobs, increase class sizes
• Protesters rally against Vancouver School Board's proposed band and strings program cuts

"Music and art are activities which allow children to think in a more abstract way … a kind of thinking that allows children to be more open to new ideas, to be more retrainable," Fenger told On The Coast host Stephen Quinn.

Hans Fenger's work in Langley served as the inspiration for the 2003 movie School of Rock. (CBC)

"Music and art are those subjects that create citizenship in a school, gives kids a sense of belonging, gives kids a sense of working with other kids together, and it gives your school the kind of feeling that you want to be there."

Fenger didn't always have such lofty ideas about music education. He admits he took a teaching job because he had a young baby and no money, and being a long-haired hippie in a band in the '70s wasn't going to put food on the table.

He found that as a music teacher for young kids, he almost had carte blanche to teach as he saw fit — the only thing that mattered was if the kids were happy or not.

So, he taught them the music he knew: rock music by artists like The Beach Boys, Phil Spector and David Bowie.

"So I would come in and teach what I knew and find an academic way of justifying it," he said. "We did David Bowie's Space Oddity … so I could say, 'Oh, it's like an opera.'"

Fenger even recorded some of his kids' performances for two LP records in the '70s, which were rediscovered and released on CD early in the 21st Century.

Vancouver students stage silent orchestra to protest budget cuts to music programs

 Published June 7, 2016 in the Straight. Original article here with images.

More than 150 students and parents showed up at 4 p.m. outside the Vancouver school board office today to protest the elimination of elementary band and strings programs.

The student-led initiative titled “Save Our Music” saw music students standing in silence, holding their instruments and various signs that read “I’d rather play.”

“It’s more than just an optional arts program,” said Bianca Chui, a Grade 11 band student from Sir Winston Churchill secondary, to the Straight. “It’s something that enriches all of our lives and I think that it’ll be really sad if elementary students no longer have the opportunity to learn or play an instrument.”

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) conductor Bramwell Tovey was also present at the demonstration, and spoke to the large group of music students.

“I want to apologize to you for all the grownups who make funding decisions. The grownups have failed you,” Tovey said into a megaphone. “We need to have grownups that say music must be part of the school curriculum.”

The strings and band program operates in 44 Vancouver schools. It is estimated that cutting it would save the district just under $400,000 per year.

In 2015, the yearly fee to participate in the band program was upped from $25 to $50 in an effort to make the continuation of the program more feasible.

However, VSB chair Mike Lombardi said in March that senior management proposals called for the elimination of the program unless the provincial government provided the VSB with additional funding.

One of the students at the protest expressed his passion for the program.
“We’re depriving kids of an opportunity that they have had under the Vancouver public school system since it was instated,” said Xiaoyu Huang, a member of Sir Winston Churchill Secondary’s music council, told the Straight. 

“The impact on kids who have been in a program and are now removed from it is especially devastating because it’s an interest that can blossom into something for the rest of their lives,” Huang added.

Christin Reardon MacLellan, president of the Coalition for Music Education in B.C., told the Straight that the idea of the “silent orchestra” came from a group of enthusiastic music students on the Sir Winton Churchill Music Council—a place that supports music in schools and collaborates with other student music councils across the city.

The band and strings programs are dubbed an “optional” program, but MacLellan believes that the issue goes beyond being able to play an instrument at a public school.

“That’s where the biggest problem lies—you cut an 'optional' program but you deny 2,000 students of music specialist teachers,” said MacLellan, who's also conductor of UBC Concert Winds. “Until they put an elementary music specialist in every single school, they can’t possibly be cutting a program that is the only access to specialists for so many students.”

How to Save Vancouver Band and Strings

This year might be the last for Band and Strings. Christy Clark's BC Liberal Government has, for the second year, disregarded the advice of the Select Standing Committee and chosen to decrease rather than increase Public School funding, and at the same time, increase Private School funding. Although the numbers increase for Public Schools, the amount does not account for either inflation or downloaded costs to School Boards that were once paid for by the Provincial Government.

If you want to do something about this, you must get vocal.

1. Write to your MLA using this handy email tool from Families Against Cuts to Education (FACE), my organization. Here is the background: https://facebc.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/209/
2.  Attend protests organized by parent groups Families Against Cuts to Education and the Parent Advocacy Network
3.  Join the Facebook Groups of Families Against Cuts to Education and the Parent Advocacy Network
4. Sign and share the Petition to Save VSB Band and Strings

 Write to Premier Christy Clark. Most importantly, let her know clearly, in the next election that we will not tolerate the destruction of Public Education and the promotion of Private Education.

Global BC TV: VSB cutting Band and Strings

From the April 29, 2010 newscast.

CBC Radio 1: Interview with Jamieson Elementary PAC Chair Reg Chow on saving Vancouver School District's Band and Strings

This interview originally aired on April 28, 2010 on CBC Radio 1.

Georgia Straight: Bramwell Tovey's statement to the Vancouver School Board

Original article appears here dated April 17, 2014.

• 

• Roger Cole reads a statement at a meeting to discuss the fate of the elementary band and strings program.DPAC VANCOUVER

On April 15, at a Vancouver School Board meeting discussing proposed budget cuts, Roger Cole, principal oboist for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, read a statement on behalf of Maestro Bramwell Tovey, music director for the VSO. The statement is reproduced in full here.

In April 2010 there was a similar public hearing when the Vancouver School Board had proposed eliminating band and strings programs. Extensive public consultation resulted in the proposal to abolish being withdrawn. The VSB were widely praised for this action which was in response to the overwhelming message of support for music in our schools from parents, pupils, the VSO and many other interested parties. The VSB listened and reacted with great leadership and insight. 

At that time, I made a submission in person, which I am unable to do tonight as ironically, I am in the UK leading the spring course for the National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain, an organization dependent on the music education programs in British schools. 

Our 2010 submission contained many details about the value of music in the lives of children. I would refer you to those remarks which were published in the Vancouver Sun and are available online. It is not necessary to repeat why music is so essential a part of a rounded education - but briefly, may I remind everyone present that music is the only language understood by everyone in our wonderfully diverse community of citizens. 

Music is the expression of the inner narrative of every child, the common thread of communication to those who participate in a band or orchestra. 

Tonight we wish to express the strongest disapproval of the VSB’s latest proposal to eliminate the Elementary band and strings programs. We are extremely sympathetic to the predicament of the Vancouver Schools Board whose budgets must be balanced and whose role is to make difficult decisions, the depth and complexity of which require an understanding and judgment which by its very nature is highly specialist.

We are aware that VSB are encouraging those against the cuts to take up the matter with the provincial government. However, we sincerely believe that there is a particular concern about the elimination of the Elementary and String program that it is only possible for the VSB to solve. 

Reinstating an eliminated program is very rare indeed. The teachers’ jobs have gone, the pupils have departed, the instruments have been sold. The whole support infrastructure has to be recreated from scratch, a very expensive undertaking, even when money seems to grow on trees. 

Restoring levels of funding to an already existing program at a later date in better circumstances, is a much simpler scenario. It is difficult to believe that if VSB eliminates this program at this moment, a future VSB would welcome the opportunity in better times, to face all the financial issues of recreating it. This is why we are urging the VSB not to eliminate the Elementary band and strings program entirely. It would be impossible to resurrect it at a later date. 

If the Elementary program were to be eliminated now, it seems inevitable that at the next VSB budget, high school programs would follow the same fate. 

We cannot begin to understand the depth of the issues facing VSB in the many essential areas of public education for which they are responsible. Our only expertise is in music. We have seen the power of music to unite people of widely disparate backgrounds. We have been in the schools, working with the students and teachers with the full support of the VSB under the banner of our program VSO CONNECTS. As VSB knows, as music director, I have been fully involved with this program with the presentation “Meet the Maestro,” conducting school bands and orchestras, meeting with parent/teacher groups, raising money for groups and much else besides. 

We are aware that the VSB is urging those against the cuts to speak out against the provincial government. The VSO will pursue its own private channels with the provincial government to communicate our serious concerns about the situation regarding the VSB budget problems. We are a non-partisan arts organization, but when it comes to the education of the children in our community, we realize that as a centre of excellence in performance and education, we have responsibilities. 

For the VSO the stakes are much higher in 2014 than in 2010. VSO Connects, which was only in its infancy in 2010, is now a fully fledged program, drawing on several years of success and operating in every school district in the Lower Mainland. In 2011 the VSO School of Music opened its doors, offering additional individual lesson capacity, group learning from infancy, adult classes and a great deal more. 

Perhaps most importantly, the VSO is in a community partnership with the extraordinary work going on in the St James Music Academy on the downtown Eastside where opportunities for young people are few and far between. As mentors and partners to SJMA, working with students and ensembles the VSO has renewed its mission to bring music to as many children as possible in our community. 

If I might repeat one thing from our 2010 submission it would be this - 

The social benefits of music are extraordinary - If a student holds a musical instrument then he or she can’t hold a knife, or a joint, or a needle or a crack pipe – or a gun. 
If a student is in a choir or a band or an orchestra, they are communicating through the universal art of music at the heart of our community. 
Please support the children who play music as one Grade 8 student said this week, because its something they can do for their entire life. 
The VSO recognizes the dilemma facing the VSB, but please, do not take the instruments away from the elementary students. 

Submitted with great respect on behalf of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Twitter: Bramwell Tovey

Dr Annie Jamieson Elementary Strings - quite superb! Bravo James Colpitts. This group saved from the axe by @VSB39 pic.twitter.com/vxWEPfZYD5

— Bramwell Tovey (@BramwellTovey) May 5, 2014