Let us consider that Private Schools are funded up to 50% at the expense of Public Schools, which have seen chronic under/defunding for +12 years.....appalling!....up to 90% of B.C. school children attend public schools!
Let us remember that premier WAC Bennett refused to give a nickel to private schools...."if the public system wasn't good enough for some parents, they could pay the whole cost of educating their kids. But when his son Bill became premier he consolidated the Socred grip on power by providing provincial money to private schools in 1977"....this was outright Vote buying....and so it continues to this day!
Allocation of our provincial Tax $$$ is highly selective by this government....ie. incentives to the LNG/Oil corporations .... returns that we will not realize for ++20 years!
B.C. citizens deserve adequate funding of our schools....our children are our future....they deserve a proper chance in Life with the Quality Education.....not closed Libraries, closed Gyms, broken Playground Equipment, sparse Ed Assistants, leaving the classroom Teacher to struggle with daunting numbers of Special Needs all at the expense of the Regular & Gifted Learners.
Trustees must speak on our behalf for better funding, not cap-in-hand accepting mere crumbs from this government.

The Vancouver School Board has shown total disregard for the needs of students at the expense of Vision's twisted ideology. Recent news that Patty Bachaus turned down absolutely free money from Chevron because Chevron sells oil shows how stupid the Vision bunch are. There were absolutely no strings attached to this money, yet Bachaus turned it down just because "Chevron sells oil". I HAVE ONE QUESTION FOR THE UNENLIGHTENED, YET BRAINWASHED MS. BAUCHAUS. HAVE YOU NEVER RIDDEN IN A CAR??? HOW DID YOU GET TO WORK TODAY??? Numerous school districts throughout BC felt this money was a nice gift, yet Vancouver School Board didn't even discuss the project - ONE PERSON THREW AWAY A LOT OF MONEY TO SERVE HER OWN POLITICAL INTERESTS. Your petty ideology trumps the needs of the students you supposedly serve. You should be ashamed of yourself. And everyone should vote to replace the (blurrred) Vision party.

Too bad this party is running with known homophobes as candidates -- this party has no credibility

I offer this information about corporate funding in the schools to give readers an idea of how complicated the issue is. It would be great to hear where this candidate is going to get the money for playgrounds from!
https://www.facebook.com/VSBDPAC/posts/563831180384214?fref=nf&pnref=story
Monday, November 3, 2014.

Over the last few days, Vancouver DPAC has found itself caught in the middle of electioneering involving two municipal political parties. Nearly eight months ago, Chevron contacted the Vancouver School Board regarding its “Fuel My School” programme. VSB declined to participate in this programme. Chevron then contacted Vancouver DPAC to lobby through us. We wrote letters to both the Board of Trustees and Chevron; the NPA has posted our letter to the Trustees on their campaign website.

To be clear: We are a non-partisan organisation. We do not appreciate being used for partisan purposes. Moreover, since Chevron contacted us and we wrote these letters, our executive board has experienced natural turnover as the terms of some parent representatives have ended and others have joined us.

With respect to the specific question of corporate sponsorship of schools, I believe that public education must be publicly funded. Our public schools – and our children – are too important to rely on fickle private funding. Already, Vancouver parents fundraise to the tune of $3M a year to provide bandaids for provincial funding shortfalls. None of us want our children to miss out, and knowing how slowly the ship of government moves, our children can’t afford to wait for the province to elevate public education to the priority it deserves; fundraising bridges the ever-growing gap, but at the risk of exacerbating inequalities already present in the system.

Arguably, corporate sponsorship could be another bandaid solution. Businesses are already in our public schools, for instance those that achieve profits and branding through parent fundraising. We feel a broad policy discussion should occur, and we will be happy to participate in the discussion. Under what circumstances – if any – should businesses have the opportunity to benefit from sponsorship in our children’s schools? This does need full consideration, and we want to ensure parent voices have an outlet in this discussion, as is our mandate. To be used for partisan purposes, however, is not acceptable to us.

bowser
"There were absolutely no strings attached to this money, yet Bachaus turned it down just because "Chevron sells oil"

Other than the shirts, posters, banners and "gifts" to the children slathered with the Chevron logo, as well as a Chevron written and approved "curriculum", no, there were no strings attached at all.

Corporations exist to make money. Period.

Any nickel spent by a corporation is always viewed through the lens of return on investment.

Even charitable donations and "community building" are all viewed as cheap public relations (and tax deductible and hence taxpayer subsidized since a tax deduction is considered a tax expenditure and as such has the same affect on the government's cash flows notwithstanding what frothing at the mouth ideologues state).

In any event, if you are going to argue "no strings attached", can you at least be familiar with the program you are advocating for?

You can find pre-teens in Chevron swag sitting in classrooms in North America all over Google with minimal effort, wearing Chevron t-shirts which were provided, you know, with "no strings attached".

You want better politicians? Become a better voter.

School Boards including the VSB have been accepting discounts and donations from technology companies like Apple and Microsoft and publishers for decades and with open arms. You cannot have it both ways, and you cannot pass judgment on one and not the other. The argument that these corporate donations or sponsorships corrupts children is simply weak and without merit. I have a lot more faith in our Children to be intelligent and critical of people like Patty Bachaus and her real motives and a company's motives for giving back to the community. We ask for companies that operate in our community to give back and invest in the community, aka corporate social responsibility, but when they try do we persecute the companies we do not like or do not agree with. It is ok for Visions Vancouver to do back room deals with Unions and take money from Developers and special interest groups, but that standard is not good enough for our public schools. Keep your politics out of Public School, that is far more damaging that Chevron will ever be.

@MD, Seems like you are the one who doesn't know what they are talking about. I guess ALL THOSE OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT Either. I'm surprised anyone would support wasting potential free money for our schools, but then Vision has never been a party with any real vision.

"School Boards including the VSB have been accepting discounts and donations from technology companies like Apple and Microsoft and publishers for decades and with open arms."

Assuming that's true, what's the harm in tech companies supplying school gear? Anything can be played on an Apple product that can also be played on a Microsoft product. It's hard to imagine the content of the curriculum being negatively affected by the sponsor. If the sponsorship encourages the school to talk about the benefits of computers, so what?

Compare this to an oil company. We know that CCAP has provided materials on "Canada's energy" to schools, i.e., boosterism for oil extraction and reliance on the petro economy. The sponsorship encourages the school to talk about the benefits of oil.

So what? Well, unlike the presence of technology in society, the presence of oil in society IS controversial, IS highly political, IS highly debatable from a variety of perspectives.

Obviously, money is not money. There is such a thing as dirty money. If the GS was accepting ads from "pray away the gay" churches, would you respect the Straight? I wouldn't.

So, you have to look at whether you want the money in the program or not.

The school board IMO should look at the kind of sponsors it wants. And IMO refusing to accept oil money is just common sense.