A compilation of media coverage and articles of interest on the efforts of parents, the music industry, music educators, and music lovers to save the Vancouver Band and Strings Programs in 2010 and 2014. In 2015 we are again faced with cuts to these programs with the elimination of the junior grades and increased user fees.
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 Extensive public consultation resulted in the proposal to abolish being withdrawn.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.
Original article dated April 29, 2010 is found here. Huge cuts to staffing and programs have been proposed to make up for a $16-million budget shortfall at the Vancouver School Board, and an announcement is expected about whether the board will vote on those proposed cuts tonight.
On Wednesday, kids and parents settled down at Kensington Park for a "read-in" to raise awareness about the cuts that could be on the way.
"Teacher librarians, special needs workers, ESL support, gifted support. Those are going to be some major losses in our children's lives," Heather Legal of the Tecumseh Annex Parent Advisory Council told CTV News.
Students stage a "read-in" at Kensington Hill park in Vancouver. April 28, 2010. (CTV)
About 161 full-time equivalent positions are on the line in Vancouver following a revision to the proposed budget, and that's not all –- the band and strings music program could also be cut.
Currently, 51 schools take part in the program, which gives kids a chance to learn a musical instrument.
Alicia Then's son has been playing violin in Jamieson Elementary's program for the last year and a half.
"Two months, he played so well for somebody who just started -- and all the other kids too -- and they really enjoy it," Then said.
"They'll be devastated, the kids. And the parents too."
James Colpitts, the school's orchestra director, said that about 260 Jamieson students are in the program.
"They're worried. I tell them to wait and see what happens," he said.
The proposed cuts were scheduled to go to a final vote at a board meeting tonight, but Board Chairwoman Patti Bacchus has said she will make an announcement this morning regarding that vote.
Vancouver school trustees voted Monday to shorten the school year and lengthen school days slightly as part of a plan to deal with an $18.2-million shortfall in 2010-11.
While Monday night's special public meeting dealt only with the length of the school year, trustees will meet again Thursday to vote on the overall spending cuts required to deal with the shortfall.
Under consideration are a wide range of measures, including the elimination of 113 teaching positions in areas such as special education, band and strings, ESL and school libraries.
On Monday, the board agreed to cut the school year by 10 days, which includes extending spring break by a week. It also includes lengthening the school day by 16 minutes for elementary school and 18 minutes at the secondary level. The board estimates that by doing so, it can shave about $1.4 million off the shortfall.
School officials say the changes to the school calendar will only last for a year and then will be subject to review.
On Monday evening, most of the school trustees said they "reluctantly" agreed to support altering the school calendar.
Only one trustee, Ken Denike voted against the motion, saying there was no benefit in keeping students in classes for longer days.
"If you've ever been around an elementary school, around the bell closing at the end, about 10 minutes before the kids are lined up at the door ready to go. We're adding 16 minutes to this? What is going to be the value of that? By the third month those kids are worn out and adding that time is going to be not productive from an educational perspective."
Patti Bacchus, chairwoman of the Vancouver board of education, said trustees are having a tough time with the cuts and said the blame rests on the province.
"While I am not particularly happy with this, the provincial government has put us in a position of facing bad and worse choices and I am hoping this one is less bad than some of the others," she said.
"Relative to what we are facing on Thursday this one was difficult but I'd say what is coming up is more difficult and we are going to have some really tough decisions to make." Trustee Sharon Gregson explained that the board dealt with the length of the school year on Monday, separate from the rest of the cuts, "because we have to meet the required 30-day period of notice regarding adopting a local school calendar and the results play into the budget process."
Dozens of parents and their kids from Jamieson elementary school crowded the school board building on West Broadway before Monday's meeting to protest the planned cuts to the strings program.
They handed Gregson a petition with more than 200 signatures pleading to keep their program off the chopping block.
Reg Chow, chairman of the parents advisory committee at Jamieson, said 250 kids are involved in the strings program, the largest school program in Canada for strings.
"If we don't have this, our kids won't have music. We think that the future of kids in Vancouver should have this opportunity."
After playing a melodic tune on her violin, 12-year-old Zoe Wu made an impassioned plea to help save her music program.
"It's horrible that they could cut our strings program because it means so much to us," she said.
"I hope that we made enough noise to convince the school board to keep the strings program."
Ten-year-old Joshua Lee, who has played the violin for two years, said every day when he wakes up he looks forward to the strings program and that if it were gone he would be very upset.
The budget shortfall comes as funding to the Vancouver board increases by $500,000 to $443.1 million for the coming year.
The government has said enrolment in Vancouver is projected to decrease by an estimated 108 students.
Earlier this month, Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid appointed B.C.'s comptroller-general to review how the VSB spends its money.
Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland has been asked to monitor the budget development process and financial forecasts and write a report by the end of May.
Last Tuesday, about 1,000 concerned people marched to MacDiarmid's constituency office on West Broadway to protest the lack of education funding.
Students from the music program at Jamieson elementary welcomed hundreds to the public consultation on the school board's preliminary 2014-2015 budget. Photo Dan Toulgoet - See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-school-board-hears-public-pleas-1.974681#sthash.W8nbHq94.dpuf
Concerned parents, students, educators and social service providers packed the gym at Mount Pleasant elementary Tuesday evening for the first of three public sessions on the preliminary 2014-2015 budget. photo Dan Toulgoet - See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-school-board-hears-public-pleas-1.974681#sthash.W8nbHq94.dpuf
You could have heard a pin drop more than two hours into Vancouver School Board’s public session on its preliminary budget Tuesday night.
Silence fell after theatre artist Marc us Youssef told the board his “awesome, wonderful” son who’s in Grade 9 at Vancouver Technical secondary and 20 of his friends had become involved with drugs.
“I don’t think we were doing a very good job as parents in dealing with it,” Youssef said. “We were kind of pretending it wasn’t happening because it was our kid and he is really wonderful.”
He described how Heather Charlton, a substance abuse youth prevention worker for secondary schools, phoned him and snapped him out of denial.
“That phone call has had a profound impact on my family over the last six months,” he said.
Youssef, co-chair of the city’s Arts and Culture Policy Council, told the board he’s advocated for more money for public education and understands the provincial government requires the board to balance its budget. But he said if he represented the VSB he wouldn’t stop funding two substance abuse prevention workers in schools to save $127,000. He also would not eliminate the elementary band and strings program to save $630,651.
“That would be my line,” he said.
Patti Bacchus, Vision Vancouver chairperson of the VSB, noted when colleagues in another school district refused to submit a balanced budget, the government appointed a trustee that immediately closed six schools.
Hundreds of parents, educators, social service workers, advocates of music programs and students packed the gym at Mount Pleasant elementary school Tuesday evening for the first of three nights of public input on the board’s preliminary budget for 2014-2015.
Most opposed silencing the band and strings.
Students told the board how learning to play instruments in elementary school exposed them to passions and experiences they might have otherwise missed. Parents and advocates noted band gave kids a place to fit in and a reason to attend school. They noted it would be difficult to reinstate a band and strings program once it was cut.
Dozens of students and parents protested the proposed elimination of the district’s athletic coordinator position, for reasons similar to music education advocates.
With 92 elementary schools and annexes and 18 secondary schools, an athletic coordinator is needed to book fields and help organize tournaments, one parent coach said.
“We have hundreds of volunteer coaches, teacher and community coaches,” said volunteer basketball coach Steve Anderson. “We need a district athletic coordinator to do the administrative work... It’s $72,000. It’s fractions of pennies on the dollar that you get back in return.”
Delegates urged the board not to cut the number of teachers at the alternative City School, which is based out of King George secondary in the West End, from two to one.
One student said she was bullied in elementary school, fell into a depression in secondary school and was on the verge of dropping out when she found City School.
“These are the people that I trust in my life,” she said of her peers and teachers.
A Vietnamese-Canadian mother explained through an interpreter how a multicultural worker helped her get help for her autistic son.
A South Asian-Canadian mother who needed to leave a dysfunctional home said she turned to a multicultural worker because she knew the worker understood her culture.
VSB staff propose cutting a multicultural liaison worker for each community because fewer children from these backgrounds are registering through the District Resource Placement Centre.
Yen Nguyen, Vietnamese youth worker at the Broadway Youth Resource Centre, said the Vietnamese population has decreased but feelings of isolation and problems related to poverty have increased.
“I am worried that if position is cut, next year it will have a ripple effect in the Vietnamese community,” she said.
An instructor and a student of Continuing Education recommended money saving and making strategies for the program that continues to run at a deficit and could be cut.
The VSB faces an estimated shortfall of $12.34 million for 2014-2015. Staff expect to spend approximately 92 per cent of its $497.19 million budget on salaries and benefits.
Bacchus noted the board has cut $47 million over the past 12 years so it’s a “very picked-over” budget.
Budget meetings and timelines:
April 22 – Revised budget released.
April 28 – The board hears input on the revised budget starting at 7 p.m. at 1580 West Broadway.
April 30 – Board finalizes the budget.
- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/news/vancouver-school-board-hears-public-pleas-1.974681#sthash.W8nbHq94.dpuf
Last year’s school board budget process had parents, students and members of the public sounding violins on the possible elimination of the Vancouver School Board’s band and strings program that operates at some elementary schools.
This year’s preliminary budget proposes offering band and strings to fewer grades and to try providing the program during prep time at select schools in September 2015, thereby decreasing the number of teachers needed. The preliminary budget also proposes increasing the user fee for the optional program from $2.50 to $5 per month. Instituting both measures would save nearly $420,000, the budget report states.
Stephanie Yada, chair of the Jamieson Parent Advisory Council, told trustees at a public consultation on the preliminary budget Tuesday night that optional band or strings classes constitute the music program at many schools.
“It means [students] all know that as soon as they reach Grade 4, that could be them, too, no matter what their family’s income or their English language skills,” she said of strings at Jamieson.
Kathy Findlay, chair of the Queen Mary Parent Advisory Council, said interested parties need more time to discuss what should be done with band and strings before any budget decision is made. Findlay noted a report on the program was only released in February and she said its recommendations inadequately reflected all that was discussed in consultations.
Findlay said parents didn’t support moving to a model that sees band and strings provided during prep time.
“We encourage a more substantial increase in user fees, an example of $20 a month, providing any child with financial hardship can still participate in a program through some type of bursary,” she said.
Colleen Maybin, vice-president of the Coalition for Music Education in B.C., said her society of parents, educators and arts organizations doesn’t want to see band and strings offered to fewer grades, but it does like the idea of a prep time model that would see a music education specialist teaching at every elementary school.
An updated report on band and strings went to a VSB committee meeting Wednesday night. It concluded the proposed changes would eliminate the equivalent of three full-time positions, not the 3.8 previously reported. Instead of $420,000, proposed changes could save $341,000.
The report stated six elementary schools that already offer band or strings could try offering these sessions during prep time in September.
Public consultation on a revised version of the budget is to happen at the Vancouver School Board building at 1580 West Broadway, April 27, starting at 7 p.m.
Original article dated April 16, 2014 is found here.
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Roger Cole speaks on behalf of Bramwell Tovey at the Vancouver School Board meeting Aug. 15.VANCOUVER DPAC
More than 200 concerned parents, students, and community members packed the auditorium at Mount Pleasant Elementary School on April 15 for the chance to weigh in on proposed budget cuts at the Vancouver School Board.
The VSB announced on April 8 that it had a budget shortfall of $12.34 million and submitted a number of proposals to balance the budget. These proposals included cutting the continuing education program and decreasing the number of school days each year, among others.
One of the recommendations made was to eliminate the band and strings program for a savings of $630,651. An alternative suggested was to increase the annual student fee for the band from $25 to $250. This option, however, would still leave a deficit.
“The atmosphere was very tense,” said Elka Yarlowe, CEO of Access to Music Foundation. Access to Music is one of the many groups hoping to prevent these funding cuts. Since 1997, they have raised $85,000 to support music in Vancouver schools. They recently started a campaign to raise money to prevent the current cuts.
At the beginning of the meeting, attendants were treated to a string performance by students from Jamieson Elementary School. “If somebody could see these sixth and seventh graders playing so beautifully and still think that the band and strings program should be cut, then I don’t know,” Yarlowe said. “Kids gain a unique confidence from being able to play an instrument.”
She adds that if the band program is taken away, it will be difficult for children to get into music later on.
“They can’t go into Grade 9 band and just pick up an instrument,” said Yarlowe. “It’s like never teaching a kid to read and then telling them in Grade 9, ‘read this novel and understand it and analyze it.’ ”
Also present at the meeting was Roger Cole, principal oboist for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He read a statement on behalf of Maestro Bramwell Tovey, music director for the VSO.
“Music is the only language understood by everyone in our wonderfully diverse community of citizens,” Tovey’s statement read.
The VSO stated that they strongly urge the VSB to keep the elementary band and strings program, and that if cutbacks are necessary, all cutbacks to the program should be temporary.
“Restoring levels of funding to an already-existing program at a later date in better circumstances, is a much simpler scenario.” read the statement. “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.”
These thoughts were echoed by Christin Reardon MacLellan, president of the Coalition for Music Education in B.C. and education and community programs manager at the VSO. She added she is also against an increase in student fees. “It will restrict access and do a great job of pointing out the haves and have nots, and that’s something we don’t want to see happen.”
One Grade 4 student who stood up to speak said that he had already picked out which instrument he was going to play and that cutting band would break his heart. “If that doesn’t get you to think about this, then what will?” asked Reardon MacLellan.
The attention that the issue has received has led to a new meeting being scheduled for April 17 to solicit more feedback from the public. Reardon MacLellan believes that the music community has made its point.
“I think our message was given loud and clear. Whether it will be listened to is yet to be determined.”
The school board will make its final decision on April 30. The next meetings will be on April 16 at 8 p.m. and on April 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the VSB Education Centre, and April 28 at 7 p.m. at the VSB Education Centre.
Original article dated April 14, 2010 can be found here.
School board considers cutting band and strings
This quote, posted on the Vancouver School Board's district fine arts website, took on renewed significance for teacher Emily Akita last week when she learned the board might eliminate the district's "itinerant band and strings program" as part of cuts to shave $18 million off its budget.
BY VANCOUVER COURIERAPRIL 14, 2010
"The arts are the soul of education."
This quote, posted on the Vancouver School Board's district fine arts website, took on renewed significance for teacher Emily Akita last week when she learned the board might eliminate the district's "itinerant band and strings program" as part of cuts to shave $18 million off its budget.
Akita, a strings teacher, maintains a solid music education is invaluable to students. "By taking away these district music programs I believe that the education system will be further reduced to a bare bones system. A body without any soul," she says.
Akita is among teachers, parents and students hoping to save the band and strings program, which is one of several programs and services on the chopping block in the VSB preliminary budget unveiled April 7.
The program gives elementary students a chance to play a band or strings instrument--19 schools have a strings program and 32 schools have a band program. The budget proposal suggests schools could attempt to provide some of these activities through a user-pay or a school-staffed program. Cutting the district's program would eliminate 8.7 full-time-equivalent teaching positions and save $589,077 annually in salaries and benefits.
Akita has been with the VSB for eight years, seven spent teaching the strings program that's offered to students in Grades 4 through 7. She works part-time at four elementary schools. Students are taught to play violin, viola, cello or bass in an orchestra, chamber group setting. Classes meet during school time and it's considered an enrichment class, which students take in addition to regular courses.
"The strings program provides the study of music which is important for children especially in their formative years," she argued. "Recent studies have proven that students who study and participate in music are more likely to become successful learners in that the students learn discipline, responsibility to self and peers, and can concentrate for longer periods of time than students who do not get music instruction."
Akita and her colleagues sent parents a letter encouraging them to make their views known. Students in North Vancouver, the letter notes, pay a $400 fee to join their district's strings/band program.
Marie-Claude Brunet's 11-year-old daughter is in Queen Mary elementary's strings program. Brunet, who plays viola with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, is "devastated" it may be cancelled. She hoped her twin nine-year-old children would enroll in Grade 4.
She's collected 89 signatures on a petition to save the program and is set to speak at a school board budget meeting Thursday. "For me, as a professional musician, I just really believe children should have a chance to play an instrument and have this opportunity. I had no idea that they would [consider taking] away the entire program when it's got such great infrastructure," she said.
Brunet objects to a user-pay system. "To me that's tiering the public school system, whereas right now it's available to anyone no matter how many children you have, no matter what your socio-economic status is."
School board chair Patti Bacchus said trustees are weighing "pretty awful" options.
"This is the brutality that's essentially being demanded through underfunding--it's cut everything but your very basic classroom services and your bare minimum to operate in the district," she said. "Taking music out of schools is unacceptable, but we're looking at taking a whole lot of things out of schools that I think are also unacceptable."
Public consultation meetings start April 15. The budget will be finalized April 29.
Meanwhile some better education news this morning for Vancouver music students. The Vancouver School Board has come up with a plan to save the elementary Band and Strings program. It's been on the chopping block due to the VSB's budget shortfall but the board could keep it, by using over $500,000 in holdback funding from the province.
"We hope that the board hears that the need for the proposed programs, that the programs that are proposed in their cuts. We hope they do find other ways, but we do understand the fiscal pressures that they're under."...
Students in a strings program played outside the Vancouver School Board office last week to protest proposed cuts to their music studies. The school board appears to have saved it, passing a balanced budget on Wednesday night that did not cut band and strings programs.
MARK VAN MANEN, PNG
Students in a strings program played outside the Vancouver School Board office last week to protest proposed cuts to their music studies. The school board appears to have saved it, passing a balanced budget on Wednesday night that did not cut band and strings programs.
The Vancouver School Board’s recent budget proposal including either a fee raise or total elimination of the Band and Strings Program, has compelled Access to Music Foundation President and CEO Elka Yarlowe to put out a call to action. She’s written an open letter to the city’s school board engaging Vancouverites to speak up to government and through social media about the importance of early music education in youth development, and take part in the public discussion coming up at 7:00pm, April 15th at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School. The recommendation in the 2014/2015 preliminary budget is “to eliminate the band and strings program for a savings of $630,651. Alternatively, the Board could increase the annual fee for the band and strings program to $25 per month for a total of $250.00 per year. This however would only generate an additional $350,000.”
Access to Music hopes you can help encourage the Vancouver School Board to keep funding in place to ensure VanCity’s kids have access to elementary school music programs. Your voice can make the difference, please join us today to help us make a better tomorrow for our kids.
You can contribute in the following ways:
join our Twitter campaign using #InvestInVanKids to show your support of music education;
write a letter to Premier Christy Clark asking for improvements to school funding (an example is at www.accesstomusic.ca); and
attend the public budget meeting on Tuesday, April 15th at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School at 7pm.
It’s not just about music. It is about providing a creative and innovative way to make the overall learning experience for every child a meaningful and lasting one.
