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.
crossi@vancourier.com
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