A parent advocacy group is hopeful that a private funder, in combination with community fundraising, will save the Greater Victoria School District’s elementary strings program, a recent casualty of the budget process.
Karin Kwan, chair of Advocacy for Music in Schools (AMIS) said she couldn’t name the family foundation making the donation because it is contingent on community fundraising for the balance. AMIS launched a fundraiser in hopes of raising $50,000 toward the goal.
“They are willing to give the majority of the funds if the community is willing to step up and put in some of it, so that’s really what our GoFundMe is all about,” she said. “The district has received private funds for a number of different initiatives over the years, so absolutely they can do that.”
Kwan said because the private funding would cover teacher salaries, it needs board approval. AMIS is working on that process now, she said.
The strings program started in 1914, Kwan said. It currently operates in 16 out of 28 elementary schools in the district and provides roughly 700 Grade 5 students with string-instrument education and the experience of playing in an ensemble. Student unable to rent their own instruments can borrow them from the school district’s music library.
Cindy Romphf, a music teacher at Cedar Hill Middle School and president of the Greater Victoria Music Educators’ Association, said studies have shown the positive impacts of early music education.
“The younger the student learns an instrument, the more benefits they get from it,” she said. “For brain development, maths, socially, everything.”
Romphf said advocates have been trying to get the program integrated into every elementary school in the district.
“It was one of the classes that really helped students get through the pandemic,” she said. “They just loved playing together, they loved their teachers, and it was just something to give them a reprieve from the other classes.”
Three of Kwan’s children have participated in the program.
“It is a wonderful, vibrant program that has been special to this district,” Kwan said. “I think too many times, music and the arts are considered frills and they’re really not. It’s such a huge part of the curriculum and I think it’s really important.”
Facing a $7-million deficit in the 2022-23 budget, the school board cut the strings program in April as part of a funding rollback on several music programs — including a 20 per cent funding cut to middle school music.
The Greater Victoria School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• The AMIS fundraiser can be found at gofundme.com/f/save-elementary-strings-in-victoria
