The twenty thousand dollar NO.

If Prince Rupert Band students wish to tap into School District monies for out of town trips, they will have exhausted all of their fund raising efforts before they ask.

An upcoming trip to Vancouver Island was the topic of a recent School Board meetings, as local trustees discussed the merits of providing the Band Association with 20,000 dollars for the out of town competition.

In the end they voted against providing the money for the upcoming trip, but left the door open for future enquiries, providing the Band Association parent’s have embarked on an intensive fund raising campaign to defray the costs of travel.

The Daily News featured the issue as its page one story in Friday’s paper.

BAND PARENTS FACE MUSIC ALONE OVER FUNDING OF TRIP
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Friday, December 15, 2006
Pages one and three

Students in the district’s band program won’t be given the funds they need for an upcoming trip.
The Band Parents’ Association had requested $20,000 from the school board, saying the community was ‘tapped out’ but trustees said no.

“It’s a significant amount of money that we have not budgeted for,” said Trustee Russell Wiens. “By removing this amount of money from our funds, even if we had surplus funds, this money is much better spent on literacy initiatives and other priorities of the board.”

However, Trustee Brian Johnson argued that the board had made similar allowances for other groups in the past, including sport teams that had unexpectedly qualified for the zones that had limited funds.

“I’d be apprehensive to say carte blanche no, maybe (we should be) looking at another figure in the meantime if that’s the route we have to take,” he said. “I think this is a wonderful opportunity not only for (the students), but to showcase us as educators and an educational institution.

“I think we should open our hearts and think twice when we can give funds out the door for sports teams ... I think music is a lot closer to academia and education than sports is.”
Johnson, with the support of Trustee Louisa Sanchez, attempted to have the issue put aside until they could talk further with the band parents, but this was defeated.

While it may not pay for this particularly foray to Vancouver Island, the district notes the band program was funded to the tune of almost $9,000 in 2004-05 and $11,000 in 2005-06. Each of the high schools is also provided with $20,000 annually to pay for school trips. The band program has yet to apply for any of those funds.

“We need to be mindful that it’s not as if we don’t already support the band program,” said Tina Last, school board chair.

“Because we do and I think it’s near and dear to every one of us,” Last added.

While the full amount will not be handed over, all trustees were supportive of the idea of possibly helping out with a lesser amount in the future — once fundraising had been exhausted and applications made to the high schools for travel funds.

Trustee Wiens noted that the contribution also needed to be part of a larger discussion with the band parents on the future of the program in light of a September court ruling that struck down school fees, including those for renting musical instruments.

“This is a program I want to see saved, and right now I don’t know that anyone else is aware of the danger we’re in of losing the whole program,” he said. “It’s a conversation we’re going to have to have with our school community obviously, there are probably other problems but certainly the band is right there at the top in terms of what’s happening in the province and the school fees issue.

“There’s a significant possibility of not being able to fund that within our school system. Other districts have gone and had it separate, privately, outside of the school system entirely and we can not as a community afford to lose our cultural support of this kind of program.”