Approved pending funding

A recommendation to increase the Vancouver School Board’s (VSB) anti-homophobia and diversity consultant’s weekly hours is contingent on the board’s ability to find more funding.

The VSB’s Pride Advisory Committee, which proposed the increase for the district’s 2008/2009 budget passed Apr 28, says the consultant’s growing workload requires expanding his hours from 2.5 to 4 days a week.

“The work that the consultant and the advisory committee have been doing has been so successful and creating such a demand in the district that the amount of staffing we had for it was insufficient to be able to meet the needs of the district in a whole number of areas,” says Pride Advisory Committee member Jane Bouey.

“He’s doing a lot of workshops in schools and also some individual work. He covers K to 12 on his own,” says Bouey, noting that before the current anti-homophobia consultant, Steve Mulligan, assumed that portfolio, two people shared the part-time position.

Vancouver’s leading role in anti-homophobia work in Canada means that Mulligan’s responsibilities also include acting as advisor to the education ministry when called upon, adds Bouey, as well as acting as a media liaison — duties that other consultants don’t do “at the same level.”

An attachment to the school board’s budget listing the proposals awaiting funding — including the consultant’s time increase — does not indicate which proposals will receive priority if additional funding became available, Bouey reveals.

“It’s just a matter of waiting and continuing to make the case,” says Bouey, urging the queer community to write to the school board to impress upon them that the position is a priority.

“The history is that additional funding has come through,” notes Bouey. “It’s just a question of the amount.”

Increasing the anti-homophobia consultant’s workweek as proposed will cost about $57,000. The total cost of implementing all the proposed additional funding stands at $1.95 million.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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