Could the City of Surrey be forced to curb development until more schools can be built?
The president of the Surrey Teachers’ Association said education is being compromised as overcrowding worsens across the school district and two high schools plan to extend their hours to deal with the crunch.
“Does Surrey have to say no more development until we have more schools?” STA president Denise Moffatt asked Wednesday. “We’ve reached a point where we’re scrambling.”
Moffatt was responding to an announcement Earl Marriott Secondary and Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary will be adopting an “alternate schedule” in September, meaning the school day will likely start earlier and end later.
While the actual schedule has not been finalized, it’s hoped congestion in school hallways will be lessened by spreading out classes over a longer day – anticipated to be between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. – with students in different grades starting and ending school and taking breaks at different times. Instruction time won’t increase.
Surrey Board of Education chair Laurae McNally said the alternate schedule is the “best of a pile of bad options.”
The district has been forced to consider space-saving measures over the last three years in the face of tremendous growth and limited capital funding from the provincial government.
“I think [the government] would acknowledge the ball has been dropped,” she said. “Even if Santa Clause gave us $200 million today, by the time we go through the hoops to build the schools, we’re looking three to five years down the road.”
In the meantime, the Surrey school district, unlike most B.C. districts, continues to grow by more than a thousand students each year. Surrey itself grows by about 800 new residents each month, many of them young families.
That’s led to 232 portables in use across the district – a cost that comes out of district operating funds. There has been very little capital funding announced since 2005 and no major addition to high school capacity for years.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said the city has been “pounding at the door of the provincial government” on behalf of the school district, but halting development is not a serious option.
“If we did that we’d be creating an unemployment problem and basically trading one issue for another,” she said. “I don’t want to be put in that position.”
The mayor said it’s the district’s responsibility to look at development projections and plan accordingly.
“I understand [the provincial government] will be rolling out something this spring, but I don’t know the details,” she added.
Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said the government is aware of the “unique challenges” Surrey faces as B.C. fastest-growing school district. The minister said she has been in touch with the school board and mayor to find a “long-term solution.”
In the meantime, the district is going ahead with plans for the alternate schedule at Earl Marriott and Lord Tweedsmuir with other secondary schools considering it for the future.
Moffatt said teachers aren’t in support of extending school hours for a number of reasons, including staffing issues in places like the school library, where adding more class blocks might mean the library has to be closed for part of the day.
Teachers are also concerned it could mean students will be in their desks too early for optimal learning and may have to leave class early or miss sporting events that happen at other schools with shorter days.
Football coaches have also expressed fears that later practices will be cut short when the sports field gets dark.
And there is also the issue of students with siblings on a different schedule.
“What do you do with students who are being dropped off early or have to stay late waiting for their parents?” said Moffatt.
“I think teachers are getting so tired of seeing these decisions being made for all the wrong reasons. This is not going to benefit students.”
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