Vancouver Courier March 4 2015

Page 1

WEDNESDAY

March 04 2015 Vol. 106 No. 17

NEWS 6

Cohousing part two OPINION 10

Know your neighbours STATE OF THE ARTS 17

CelticFest goes Pogue

There’s more online at

vancourier.com MIDWEEK EDITION

THE VOICE of VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS since 1908

Believing in the team Coach with cancer inspires players BASKETBALL Megan Stewart

mstewart@vancourier.com

HERON THERE: Blue Herons stood watch in Stanley Park this week near the Vancouver Park Board office. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Strings attached to band funding VSB report suggests scaling back

Cheryl Rossi

crossi@vancourier.com

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 lastminute 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. Continued on page 4

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Soon after he’d left Britannia secondary to start his professional life as a young adult, Eric Ming was leading club basketball teams at Strathcona community centre and coaching underclassmen in the Bruins program. “It’s always been a big passion of mine,” said Ming, 29. “I always wanted to coach at my high school to give back.” The Bruins won the senior boys AA B.C. championship in 2008 and in 2010, when Ming was an assistant coach, they won for a second time in three years. During that time, Ming would often wrap morning practices to leave for the hospital. A year before he returned to coach at his alma mater, he’d had been diagnosed with leukemia. He was 20 years old. “Basketball helped me get back on my feet. It gave me something to live for and a better appreciation. Once you get sick, you start to think what your life is really about,” said Ming. “For me, it’s like the challenges that my coaches presented me when I was in high school gave me strength to get through my treatment and I wanted to give that same experience to the kids.” Ming coached the junior Bruins while he had cancer. And alongside Wayne Hoang, Ming has coached the last two season while undergoing chemo treatment. “I’d come in during training camp, I would run the camp in the morning, go to chemo and then go to work after. That would be my schedule for the day.” After his initial diagnosis in 2006, Ming relapsed more than once. “Between then and now, there’s been several rounds of treatment, relapses and remissions. I’ve kind of lost count over the years.” The latest relapse happened this summer. Cancer is spreading to Ming’s lower spine and causing nerve damage. Continued on page 19

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