Enrolment down in Vancouver schools while Surrey struggles to meet demand

WATCH: The first day back to school sees overcrowding in Surrey but empty spaces in Vancouver. Jill Bennett looks at what’s behind the differences in the two districts.

A new school year kicked off Tuesday and two of Metro Vancouver’s biggest districts are dealing with very different problems.

In Vancouver enrolment continues to slide as the high cost of living drives families away to places like Surrey, which is struggling to handle the influx of students.

Surrey’s Katzie Elementary, the largest in the district, opened last year with enough capacity to handle 600 students. More than 700 enrolled this year, forcing officials to set up five portables to act as temporary classrooms.

At Adams Road Elementary, a 10-classroom addition is being built even though the school opened just four years ago.

A new elementary school is on the district’s wish list, but it comes with a hefty $15-million price tag and funding has not been approved.

“We certainly anticipate growth and we can do projections and they’re reasonably accurate,” said Doug Strachan of the Surrey School District. “The challenge is it takes a number of years before we actually have a school ready to be occupied.”

While Surrey deals with a construction boom that is attracting young families, it’s a much different story in Vancouver where many schools have hundreds of empty spaces.

Some areas–such as downtown and Olympic Village–are seeing growth, but enrolment is down again this year.

“The Vancouver School Board does projections every year,” said the VSB’s Elaine McKay. “We have to wait for some time to see what the reality is in terms of the number of students who actually show up. For the 2015-16 school year, there’s a slight decline from the previous year. We are predicting a slight decline for the next two school years with a stabilization in 2017-18 and then slow growth from then on.”

While slow growth may be the hope in Vancouver, the rise in families moving to Surrey, and the demands on its school district, shows no signs of slowing down.

-With files from Jill Bennett