Surrey, B.C. schools close to in-catchment students and more are expected

Three schools in Surrey, B.C., have been forced to suspend enrolment, even for students in the catchment area, due to overcrowding.

The pressure from rapid growth is so strong that kindergarten registration is exceeding the available capacity at Latimer Road Elementary School in Cloverdale.

Bayridge Elementary and Grandview Heights Secondary are already closed to in-catchment students.

Grandview Secondary was only built in 2021 to alleviate pressure on the district’s school system.

Students with siblings already at one of the schools will still be given priority, if possible.

From September 2023 to March 2024 there has been an increase of around 1,000 students in kindergarten to Grade 12 in the Surrey School District.

“Imagine you picked your home and you’re getting ready to register your kid for school, and then you go to register them and you’re not able to get in,” Anne Whitmore, acting president of the Surrey District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC), told Global News.

“So now you’re forced to look for daycare, making other arrangements for drop-off and pick-up. It’s a big mess.”

2:01 Popular Surrey school program Strong Start at risk of cancellation

Whitmore added that parents and caregivers are under tremendous stress and more closures for enrolments are expected to be announced before the school season even begins in September.

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“We’re looking at capital funding that needs to happen for new school builds,” she said.

“And this has been a long-term situation where Surrey keeps asking for more schools. We now have almost 9,000 students, I believe, in portables. That’s the equivalent of almost 18 elementary schools doing school in portables.”

Last week, parents in Surrey also learned that an early learning program is at risk of being cancelled.

A funding crunch could mean StrongStart will be scaled back or scrapped, which would impact thousands of children.

StrongStart is a program that eases children aged five and under into kindergarten.

The school board said funding from the province for the program has not increased since 2008, and it is forced to either scrap the program or severely reduce it.

There are 23 StrongStart programs across the district, with more than 3,000 kids registered.

1:52 Classic books quietly pulled from school curriculum in Surrey amid parent complaints

Gary Tymoschuk, vice-chairperson of the Surrey Board of Education, told Global News there is no quick fix to any of these issues.

“What we’re looking for, and we’ve been asking for for years now, is additional capacity,” he said.

“And that comes from the provincial government. We’re looking for new schools and our last capital submission, which was late last spring, so last May, we were looking for nine new schools and expansions to 16 existing schools.”

Tymoschuk said while they get millions of dollars in funding from the province, it does not keep up with the rapid growth in Surrey.

There are almost 78,000 students enrolled in Surrey from kindergarten to Grade 12.

“The priority is kids,” Whitmore said.

“So to ask, do you want to serve kids with disabilities? Do you want to serve kids like our Strong Start programs that are at risk of being closed from 0 to 5, or kids in this catchment zone? Those are unfair questions to our children.

“And so we want all of our children to be able to go to school in a safe environment, in a welcoming environment, in their community.”