A recent report meant to find a way for the Vancouver School Board to offer a band and strings program at elementary schools on a cost-neutral basis has reached a grim conclusion, considering the school board projects a $14.77 million budget shortfall for 2015-2016.
“There is no practical way to eliminate the full budget for elementary band and strings in the 2015 budget process without eliminating the whole program,” wrote former VSB associate superintendent of learning service Valerie Overgaard, who was contracted to prepare the report.
Instead, Overgaard said how music education is delivered in Vancouver’s elementary schools should be reconsidered, and she suggested ways of reducing program costs for September 2015 in the report that was presented to a school board committee, Feb. 11.
Most of the protest during the VSB’s budget process last spring concerned the proposed elimination of the Vancouver School Board’s band and strings program to help alleviate the board’s projected budget shortfall of $11.65 million for 2014-2015.
The board subsequently dedicated last-minute holdback funds from the province to saving the program for one year while options for retaining the program with no cost to the district were explored.
The school board covers the cost of the equivalent of eight full-time teachers, beyond school-based staffing allocations, to teach band or strings to 2,800 students at 52 of 76 elementary schools in Vancouver. Band is taught to Grades 5 or 6 to 7 students in 31 schools; strings to students in Grades 4 to 7 in 20 schools.
Some elementary schools have music specialist teachers, in addition to band teachers, that offer band instruction. (All secondary schools offer band and/or orchestra programs.)
The programs are optional and students pay an annual fee of $25.
Overgaard suggested the board could strengthen its arts education policy by directing schools to hire more music specialists over the next five years.
She also wrote the district could save money by only offering band to Grade 7 students starting in September 2015.
“This would not be out of line with other school districts,” Overgaard wrote. “Burnaby, in fact, found that when they offered the program to Grade 7 students only, the retention rate in Grade 8 went from 50 per cent to 80 per cent.”
Vancouver is only one of three districts in Metro Vancouver that provides strings instruction in elementary schools and it’s the only strings program offered without being user pay.
Overgaard suggested the board could stop offering strings to Grade 4 students to save money.
Schools could specifically assign prep time to band or strings where this is practical. Assigning prep time would likely mean all students would take band or strings; it would no longer be optional.
Encouraging schools to use prep time for band could help expand the program to schools that don’t have a band program. The report states it isn’t feasible to expand strings.
“If the board found a way to keep some limited funds, with the knowledge that this level of funding could be reduced over the next few years, the band and strings program could be sustained on an ongoing basis,” Overgaard concluded.
The Coalition for Music Education in British Columbia wants the VSB to adopt a three-phase, five-year plan that would see a music specialist teacher in every elementary school, it announced in a media release March 2. The coalition wants band and strings taught in prep times.
“The school district needs to take leadership when it comes to implementing their policy on arts education, and that includes music,” said Christin Reardon MacLellan, president of the coalition.
District staff are working on a report that will include options and related costs to go to a VSB committee meeting March 25.
Adult education
Vancouver School Board trustees, adult education teachers from the VSB and Vancouver Community College and adult education students have organized a public forum/rally called Adult Education Matters for March 5, 7 to 9 p.m. at the Croatian Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Dr. The provincial government announced in December that effective this May, it would no longer fund adult education courses for high school graduates who enrol in adult education to upgrade their courses or marks. Organizers want the provincial government to reverse this decision.
Advocates for adult education say the changes will also result in fewer course options for all adult education students.
twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi
