One month into the school year, dozens of children at a Surrey school are still without a permanent classroom space.
Some students at the overcrowded Walnut Road Elementary School are learning on stage, in the gym or in the staffroom as new portables await use on the grounds.
“It’s a distraction for the kids because it’s not a permanent learning area,” said Saakshi Khanna, co-chair of the school’s parent advisory committee.
“I would say they’re having their classes but I don’t know how effective that is. I’m sure all the teachers are eager to get back into their permanent spaces so they can have that formal learning started.”
While Khanna’s son has a classroom space, she said the issue has been raised to her by other parents in the school’s “very close-knit community.”
Right now, children have been taking physical education outdoors instead of the in the busy gym.
Laurie Larsen, chairperson of the Surrey School District’s Board of Trustees, recognized the situation — caused by a delay in portable setup — is far from ideal.
“When a portable is assigned to a school, there first has to be an engineering consultant, then somebody has to go inspect the land, then we have to do a building permit and get that approved,” she explained.
“Then we get the portable moved, then there’s inspection to make sure it’s right and then the furnishings go in and all that takes time.”
She said she expects the portable issue — in all district schools — to be resolved early next week, meaning all the children will have permanent spaces.
“They’ll have the same class and the same teacher, so not all of it is a disruption,” Larsen said. “Some of them will be moved into a classroom and some of them may be moved into a classroom.”
Walnut Road Elementary School got 93 new students in September. Altogether, the Surrey School District got about 2,560.
Larsen said the district has spent $5.7 million on 50 portables and is still searching for additional funds, as some of the prefabricated models are stackable, have indoor plumbing, and come at a higher cost. It costs about $100,000 to move the portables, she added.
Walnut Road has nine of the prefabricated portables.
“If we could stack them, we would use that much less space because right now it takes up parking space and play space and soccer fields,” she said.
“There will come a time when we don’t have room for any more children and it seems to be almost at that point right now. It’s sort of at that tipping point.”
She said some schools in the Surrey School District have already had to turn away students in their catchment area and send them elsewhere, as they can’t accommodate anyone else.
Lizanne Foster, vice-president of the Surrey Teachers Association, told Global News that the issue of overcrowding has been raised many times with the school district. All of the districts in the Lower Mainland have competing requests for portable moves from the region’s sole company that can move them, she added.
While schools like Walnut Road await their turn, however, there are consequences. Foster cited health and safety concerns, challenges accessing washrooms, and an impediment to creating the “classroom community.”
“That’s what you do at the beginning of the school year, you try to get to know each other, you try to create classroom norms, you know, getting the kids to work together,” she explained.
“If you don’t have an actual room that’s called a classroom, there’s all kinds of difficulties.”
More than 78,000 students are enrolled in the Surrey School District.
To address that growing need, the B.C. government has approved funding to build a new 612-student Snokomish Elementary School in Surrey, slated to open in 2025. The school district, meanwhile, is planning to build a new elementary school in 2024, called Ta’talu Elementary.
In 2017, the BC NDP promised that if elected, it would eliminate portables in Surrey schools by 2020. At the time, there were 250 portables in the city. Since 2017, B.C.’s Ministry of Education said it has completed at least 16 new schools and expansions in Surrey kids, compared to zero new schools and one expansion completed between 2014 to 2017 by its predecessor.
In a May interview, Education Minister Rachna Singh said the province is still making up for a lack of investment in previous years.
“We will continue to invest in Surrey schools as we make up for years of infrastructure deficits left by the old government. While the old government failed to open any new schools for multiple years, we are delivering over half a billion dollars in new funding that is creating 400 new classrooms for 10,000 kids, with more on the way.”
As of December last year, seven new school builds or capacity additions were approved for Surrey on the B.C. government’s website, including the Snokomish and Ta’talu elementary schools. Those projects add up to more than $147 million, with occupancy dates ranging from fall of 2023 to fall of 2025.
Another eight projects were recently completed in Surrey, such as the new Grandview Heights Secondary and Regent Road Elementary schools, and a three-storey addition to Sullivan Heights Secondary School.
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