VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The Vancouver School Board and the province are in the midst of a fight over funding.

There is a third party who is concerned that kids are being forgotten in the conversation.

Andrea Sinclair with the Parent Advocacy Network says both sides are partially at fault.

“Everybody is playing politics and that’s fine, you expect that from them. What’s happening is that kids are getting lost in the middle and the kids are pawns.”

She sides with the VSB in this case though saying it wasn’t the only board that had to deal with a budget shortfall.

“Every district had a shortfall. At one point, more than 50 per cent of them had an 82 million shortfall. Is that because they are all badly managing their books, and not managing their kids? I would say no.”

Sinclair says if the VSB wasn’t managing its money properly, the province would have noticed in the last two audits just a year ago.

She believes parents are forced to look at other education options if their school is on the cut list even if the school is saved.