Province's Surrey school approval 'a drop in the bucket' for fast-growing district
Surrey needs nine schools right now, not just two, and the mayor is calling for a solid five-year construction plan
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Education Minister Rachna Singh says Surrey school district has approval to start planning for one new elementary school and an addition to Grandview secondary school, an announcement that was panned Friday by critics as “a drop in the bucket” in terms of the district’s needs.
No dollar figure was attached to the announcement. Singh said that will be determined once the Surrey school district completes the business plans for a new Darts Hill elementary and the addition, but the schools could be open by the fall of 2028.
Meantime, there is no sign that Surrey’s rapid growth, which has the district expecting 2,400 new students a year for the foreseeable future, is slowing.
The Surrey school district asked government last fall to approve nine new schools and 16 additions worth $3 billion to relieve enrolment pressures.
“We welcome the addition of the new school at Darts Hill (in south Surrey), but I have to tell you I was very disappointed that that is what it came to, one new school,” said Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke.
Locke said news of the addition to Grandview Heights was included in the budget announced Feb. 24, so it was really a re-announcement.
“We need a minimum nine new schools and we need (them now,)” Locke said, calling Friday’s announcement “a drop in the bucket of what Surrey needs.”
“We’re not seeing anything that delivers a really solid five-year capital plan that makes our city our parents and our students feel like there is some attention paid to Surrey.”
Locke added that the school district has been adding portable washrooms to serve its 375 portable classrooms, which house more students than the entire enrolments of some smaller B.C. school districts.
Surrey school board chairperson Laurie Larson said the projects announced “address some of the exponential growth” happening in south Surrey, but the city does need a lot more.
In February, the district approved extended instructional days at five Surrey high schools to help relieve some of the enrolment pressure on schools, but Larson said that is just a “Band-Aid fix.”
“It is small in comparison to what we asked, but we do expect more (announcements) coming in the fall,” Larsen said Friday.
Singh said government is also looking for “new and creative solutions” for relieving pressure on Surrey’s schools because the process for planning and approving schools takes a lot of time.
Last fall, government approved the use of prefabricated construction techniques for classroom additions to three schools, which takes less time, and the district can expect more such projects in the future.
Government is also considering quicker approval for simplified school designs that can be repeated on different sites and Singh said “there will be more capital announcements coming up, I’m sure, as we did last year in the fall.”
Friday’s announcement, however, seemed like a “non-announcement” to Lizanne Foster, first vice-president of the Surrey Teachers Association.
To have a real impact, Foster said government needed to make a commitment, with money attached, to build one new high school and two new elementary schools that would be completed within three years.
“That would just relieve the pressure,” Foster said. “That would not accommodate the explosive growth that’s going to happen as a result of the (Surrey to Langley) SkyTrain extension.”
The event, Foster added, seemed to have been engineered for Singh to talk about the 17 new schools and additions worth some $750 million that her government has started on since taking office in 2017 without substantial new action.
“Do you have to call a press conference to say that a process to increase schools is following on to the next step,” Foster said.
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