VSB blames province for possible cuts to elementary school band programs
Posted April 15, 2014 10:15 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver elementary schools could be losing their band programs thanks to a budget deficit at the district. School Board Chair Patti Bacchus, says there’s just no where else left to cut.
The Vancouver School Board has to find a way to make up a $12-million deficit, and Bacchus says at this point, anything that isn’t an enrolling class is at risk. “The reality is most of our money goes toward kids in classrooms and instructional salaries and instructional salaries of either teachers, support workers, school administration and other non-enrolling staff. There aren’t other places to go anymore.”
According to Bacchus, the district has been dealing with a decline in funding for twelve years, with the last seven particularly difficult as utilities and other costs rise.
Cuts to programming aren’t the only thing the board is looking at to meet their deficit. “We’re looking at everything [including] being the only school board in BC not to belong to the BC School Trustees Association anymore to save on membership fees,” says Bacchus.
She blames the government for forcing the district to make difficult decisions, stating BC has the lowest per-student funding in the country. “One has to question if this is a deliberate effort to undermine the confidence in public schools so we see more families going off into the private system, whether government is actually deliberately doing it because it doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
Under proposed cuts, students could also lose school counselors, psychologists, speech language pathologists, and the district athletic coordinator responsible for sports programs.
There’s nothing on the list of proposed cuts that Bacchus feels good about, but the board is left in a difficult position. “We have to balance our budgets or we get fired like they did in Cowichan, and the fear with that is they fire the boards and they go in and start closing schools, and that’s a real concern,” says Bacchus.
An open house will be held at Mount Pleasant Elementary on Tuesday April 5th at 7pm. Presentations will be made by Christin Readon from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Elke Raylowe from the Music Assess Foundation. Parents, students and speakers from UBC’s Faculty of Education will also be speaking at the forum along with a retired music teacher who received a BC Music Educators Assocation award for excellence. If required, the open house will be continued Wednesday April 16th at 8pm at the VSB Education Centre.
