Some parents have expressed frustration with the amount of time their children spend commuting from their old school in Port Coquitlam — which burned down in October — to the site they’re attending in the interim.
Hazel Trembath Elementary was destroyed on Oct. 14 in a suspicious fire whose cause is still under investigation. More than 250 students are now at the Winslow Centre in Coquitlam, which was renovated to meet their needs.
The students, however, are dropped off at Hazel Trembath each morning and driven to the other school during school hours, a commute that shaves up to 25 minutes off the time that was previously spent learning.
“They’re missing school taking that bus every day for sure and that adds up over time,” said Tracie Wells, who was picking her granddaughter in Grade 4 on Friday. “If there’s any holdup on the rebuilding of this school, it impacts on the kids every single month.”
Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West said he understands the frustrations. He has a child enrolled at Hazel Trembath who used to walk to school each day, and is now spending up to half an hour on a bus to the Winslow Centre.
“I think like all parents, we’re really appreciative of how people moved very quickly to find a place for our kids to be and to be together and that’s been really important. But it’s definitely a change from what people are used to,” West said. “Like all parents, I think you want to make sure your kid’s getting as much instructional time as every other child … you don’t want your child to fall behind.”
In an interview, the chair of School District 43’s board of education, confirmed the students are losing a bit of instructional time each day as a result of the bus schedule. After the disaster, however, Michael Thomas said it was important to keep as much normalcy in the routine as possible, including pickup and drop off times.
“We know not everyone can adjust to their work schedules and childcare schedules and everything, you know, on the fly,” he explained. “It was really important to us in the tragic aftermath of the fire that we keep the kids together, we keep them with their teachers, we keep them with their friends and peers.”
Thomas described the schedule as an “accommodation” in an “emergency,” but said adjustments have been made to address concerns about shorter classroom time.
Those include a shorter lunch break and concessions in “important enrichment activities” such as music class, to make up for the instructional time lost on the bus, Thomas said. Timetable changes are planned for 2024, however, that would mean no activities are given up.
“We’ve been working very closely with our bussing provider to bring some additional busses in with drivers that are kind of dedicated to our needs for Hazel Trembath,” Thomas explained. “So we’ll be adding some extra time, adjusting the schedule to make sure that we’re adding those really important things back into their kids’ daily routine.”
Tanya Nicoll, whose three children commute from Hazel Trembath to the Winslow Centre daily, said she thinks everyone has done the best they can in the situation.
“Overall, I don’t think there’s a good answer to anything. We’re grateful that the school district pulled it all together in such a short time and grateful to the teachers for what they endured and then having to continue and teach these kids,” Nicoll said. “There is nowhere else for them to go, so it is what it is … I really hope that they rebuild the school it’s such an integral part of this community. ”
Shortly after the fire, Port Coquitlam’s mayor and council passed a motion requesting that the B.C. Ministry of Education and school district rebuild Hazel Trembath as quickly as possible.
The motion also instructed municipal staff to prioritize any relevant application and waive and applicable city fees.
The school district has set up an online fundraiser to support the Hazel Trembath community and has committed to rebuilding the school. The province, however, has asked it to explore other options as well, such as additions to other schools or dispersing Hazel Trembath’s students elsewhere in the district.
West said he hopes the province make good on previous signals sent from ministers that favour a rebuild.
“The process should be expedited. This is an extraordinary circumstance,” West said. “They shouldn’t be making the district go through some convoluted process to demonstrate that a new school should be rebuilt when there was a school here just a few months ago.”
The district hopes to have the Hazel Trembath demolition and land clearing completed next spring.
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