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...

Voters lined up at the Whalley Legion hall to cast ballots in a Surrey election - probably about 50 years ago. Photo from the Surrey Archives. An update: There will be a meeting for the eight Surrey mayoral candidates tonight (Wednesday, Oct. 3) at Morgan Creek Golf Club in South Surrey. It is sponsored by the South Surrey-White Rock Chamber of Commerce. I will be involved as one of the two moderators. The meeting is open to the public, and starts at 6:30 p.m. I am planning to post a more detailed look at the candidates running in Surrey and the major issues of the campaign thus far. It will appear on this blog in the coming days, as I find time to do sufficient research. Surrey residents who are planning to vote will have to pick through 84 candidates running on 10 different slates, along with a large number of independents, when they go to the polls on Oct. 20. While the sheer number of candidates and slates may seem overwhelming – and it is – there are many good ...

The provincial government has come through for Surrey students and parents. Premier Christy Clark came to Surrey to announce a substantial school building program on Friday, totalling almost $100 million. The program will create space for 2,700 more students, which will take a significant amount of pressure off crowded schools. The program will use $74.2 million from the province and $25.3 million from the school district to build two new schools, add 600 seats at three crowded elementary schools in the South Newton-Panorama area and purchase land for a new elementary school in Port Kells. One of the best things about the announcement is that the fastest-growing areas of the school district are all included. Grandview Heights gets a new 1,500-student secondary school, which will open in 2020. Clayton gets a new elementary school, to open in 2019. The 600-seats will be added at Panorama Park, Sullivan and Woodward Hill Elementaries, all of which are significantly overcrowde...