Students, teachers, trustees implore Wynne to prevent TDSB music cuts

TORONTO – If their voices didn’t get the premier’s attention, the five-piece brass band may have.

A group of students, parents, school trustees – and yes, a brass quintet – took to Queen’s Park Monday morning to urge Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to save the Toronto District School Board’s music program from sweeping budget cuts.

A press release issued Monday morning argued the proposed cuts are part of many the TDSB are hoping will help recoup a$55 million funding shortfall this year. Cuts include 25 per cent of the band and strings programs, 20 per cent of the steel pan program, and 100 per cent of the recorder/Orff/vocal program.

Protesters contend that when similar cuts were proposed a decade ago by Provincial Supervisor Paul Christie, Wynne, then a TDSB trustee, was a vocal opponent of the cuts.

“Itinerant music instruction has been part of music instruction in Toronto since at least 1928,” said TDSB Trustee Chris Glover in the media release.

“If the provincial advisors at the TDSB can’t find another way to balance the budget, then we need to speak directly to the provincial government because they are the ones who control the funding,” said Glover.

Alfreda Harrison, a former TDSB music coordinator who has since retired, attended the rally on Queen’s Park to protest the budget cuts. Harrison said that 107 part-time itinerant music instructors currently teach over 1660 hours of music each week at up to 294 elementary schools across the board.