School Cuts Amidst Olympic Propaganda Campaign

By Rod Mickleburgh, The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, September 8, 2009

As the three mascots of the 2010 Winter Games cavorted happily with scores of delighted, squealing school children, there was a fiscal elephant in the room that cast a shadow over the launching of Olympic-related school programs at False Creek Elementary on Tuesday.

Vancouver School Board chairwoman Patti Bacchus said she found it "pretty hard" to get excited about the Olympics, given the "severe budget crisis" the board is facing because of provincial government cuts to grants. "That tends to dominate what we're talking about when it comes to our schools."

Ms. Bacchus also referred to the slashing of $130,000 from the budget of B.C. School Sports, which organizes competitions for more than 100,000 high school students in the province.

"It seems ironic that we're celebrating the Olympics in our schools when we've just had cuts in sports operating grants," she said, after Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid and Olympics Minister Mary McNeil presided over the designation of False Creek as B.C.'s first 2010 Spirit School.

Ms. MacDiarmid suggested last week that athletes whose events have been cancelled could compensate by "walking or dancing or playing in parks."
But Ms. Bacchus noted that elite athletes who also attended the event spoke about their passion for competition.

"The Olympics is the most famous, organized sport program there is, and it's key to have opportunities for competition available to students in all sports," she said. "It concerns me that some of the funding that does that has now been cut."

Passion for sports is fed, to a large extent, by competition, Ms. Bacchus said, not by "walking or dancing or playing in parks."

The 2010 Spirit School program, estimated to cost $500,000, is designed to encourage schools to embrace the Olympics in the classroom and motivate students to lead healthier lives.

"Maybe you can adopt a country [for the Olympics]," Ms. McNeil told the young students gathered on the False Creek school's gymnasium floor. "[And] be a little healthier than you are now. Instead of taking a candy, take an apple."
Under the program, students will also have the chance to act as reporters by gathering information about the Olympics and posting their stories online.

On another matter, Ms. Bacchus reiterated that Vancouver public schools will remain open during the 17-day Olympics in February, unlike neighbouring school districts such as West Vancouver, Richmond and Howe Sound, which have opted to close their doors to students while the Games go on.

"There are pros and cons either way, but it would have been hard for many working parents and vulnerable students [for Vancouver schools to shut down]," she explained. "We listened to our stakeholders."