Frankly Speaking

Frank Bucholtz photo The sun sets on the sign announcing that a new Maddaugh Road Elementary school will be built on 76 Avenue in Clayton - and be open by September, 2019. However, no contract has been awarded to build the school and it is highly doubtful it will open on the advertised date. Capital funding for new schools is the major issue in the election of new trustees to the Surrey Board of Education. School board elections are an afterthought for the vast majority of voters. This is true even in Surrey, which has the largest public school system in B.C. and continues to grow rapidly. The major issue in Surrey revolve around growth. As the city continues to approve development applications, schools gradually become even more crowded. The supply of new schools simply is not keeping up with the number of students showing up at the doors. I can see this in my own neighbourhood of Clayton. This area has grown rapidly in the past 15 years, as East Clayton developed wi...

There's more than one way to freeze things in Surrey. In January, 74 Avenue in Clayton was covered with snow. A few months later, demolition contractors took down three homes on the street to prepare the site for the building of a new elementary school. Now it is November - and there is still no funding in place for the school to be built, even though funds for it were promised at about the time of this snowfall. A rally on Oct. 28 once again highlighted the need for more school space in Surrey. This issue has become even more critical this school year, as a settlement between the B.C. government and the B.C. Teachers Federation following a lengthy court battle means class sizes are significantly smaller. Many Surrey schools were already short of space, and now there is significantly less. The rally was held at Earl Marriott Secondary and was organized by the Surrey Schools Coalition, a group encompassing parents, city representatives and the business community. Karen ...

Surrey has a serious school overcrowding problem, but you wouldn’t know it from much of the media coverage about Lower Mainland schools. A dispassionate observer getting information from the Vancouver-based media would likely come to the conclusion that the biggest school-related challenge in the largest metropolitan area of B.C. is that 13 Vancouver schools may eventually be closed. This is because the provincial government won’t fund seismic upgrades unless school enrolment is at 95 per cent capacity. Enrolment in Vancouver schools has been falling for decades, and many schools are barely half-full. The Vancouver School Board has vigorously resisted closing any schools for years. The biggest challenge is, as community newspapers The Surrey-North Delta Leader and Peace Arch News have reported for many years, that many Surrey schools are overcrowded. This is due to two key factors – the amount of development taking place in many Surrey neighbourhoods, and the subsequent boos...