Teacher Steve Sainas and the Rock School program at Port Coquitlam's Terry Fox secondary school can add another award, and more stories, to their playbook.
Sainas has been named the 2015 MusiCounts Teacher of the Year, the 10th year this award has been dished out to top teachers who keep music alive. With the award come two chunks of cash - $10,000 for the program and $10,000 for Sainas - and a walk along the red carpet and VIP treatment at the Juno Awards.
Rockin' out for a Port Coquitlam School
Next weekend, Sainas and his wife will head to Hamilton, Ont. to mix and mingle on the red carpet with the likes of Michael Bublé, Drake and Arcade Fire.
But it's not just attending next Sunday's Juno Awards the veteran music teacher is excited about but the opportunity to promote Fox's Rock School, which has been a fixture on the local music scene with its fundraising concerts and the budding teenage musicians it inspires.
"It's always been a goal of mine to put a spotlight on the program so I can share it with other teachers," Sainas said."We've been lucky and worked hard with a lot of support from the community to bring about a program that's financially self-sustaining."
During a special reception, he'll get a chance to talk up the program, his colleagues - including Dan Tilsley - and the students who get so passionate and involved in their music and the community that supports them.
"I'll be able to acknowledge all the people who have supported and worked alongside to make it happen," he said.
As we'll, Sainas, who is an award-winning roots blues musician himself, will get to participate in a singer-songwriter's circle.
"It's a big deal for us," said Sainas of the weekend of galas, concerts and after parties, noting that he and his wife have already been shopping for clothes, although he may also sport a Terry Fox high school t-shirt to at least one function to show his roots.
"This is their award," he says of his students, "I couldn't do this without the commitment from the kids who do the shows after year.
"I'm paying this forward in the biggest way," he said. "This is my passion."
For Sainas, the award, especially the cash, couldn't come at a better time, because funding is tight for public school music programs across B.C., including in School District 43, where programs have been scaled down or eliminated.
"This year has been particularly brutal," said Sainas, who will use the $10,000 cash to buy a new keyboard, a bass guitar and other equipment for Fox's Rock School, with the other $10,000 going toward a new guitar for himself and to help him get out of his "strike hole" - when teachers didn't get paid during a strike and lockout last year.
MUSIC NOT A FRILL
If anyone can make a claim that music education in public schools is not a frill but a necessity, it's Sainas, who credits his own high school music teacher for steering him on the path toward his current career. While it might be a cliché to say that picking up a guitar changed his life, that's pretty much what happened to Sainas, who describes himself as a shy teen.
For a long time he kept his electric guitar in the closet because he was too embarrassed and self-conscious to play. It wasn't until his Kitsilano high school teacher, Charles Arthur Russ, "made me feel important and made me feel good about playing guitar," that he pushed through and picked up his old, second-hand instrument.
"I didn't know where it would lead me. I've been looking for him because I want to thank him, I've never had the opportunity," Sainas says.
Now,Sainas brings that same sensitivity to the Rock School program, where he encourages all students, even those with learning challenges, and gives them the freedom to fail and the advice to soar and strut on stage. It's a lesson that can only be taught by someone who has been down that road and Sainas acknowledges he was a kid who just needed an adult guide to have confidence in him and give him a chance.
He would like to think the Rock School program can do the same for other kids.
The MusicCounts Award suggests it can.
This is not the first time the Rock School program has been recognized by MusiCounts. In 2009, it won $10,000 for music equipment through the MusiCounts Band Aid program.
