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 Extensive public consultation resulted in the proposal to abolish being withdrawn.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

CTV Vancouver News: Vancouver students stage read-in to protest cuts

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. 

RELATED LINKS

• North Vancouver closes third elementary school
• Revised VSB budget spares 28 jobs
• VSB cuts 10 days from next school year
• Province appoints advisor to look into VSB's books
• Vancouver School Board proposes cutting 190 jobs

PHOTOS

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 Sun: VSB votes to shorten school year by 10 days

Original article dated April 27, 2010 found here.

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.