A Surrey city councillor wants council to declare the city’s school facility infrastructure situation to be in a state of crisis that’s “impacting the delivery of the education that our children need and deserve.”
Coun. Harry Bains presented a notice of motion at Monday night’s council meeting to this end. “Be it further resolved that that this council direct staff to urgently organize a meeting with the city, the school district, the minister of housing and the minister of education to remediate this crisis situation immediately,” he told council.
Surrey-Green Timbers MLA Rachna Singh is B.C.’s minister of education and child care and Delta North MLA Ravi Kahlon is B.C.’s housing minister.
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Bains noted that Surrey’s population is growing faster than in any other city in B.C. and is expecting “significant population growth,” especially along the SkyTrain corridor along Fraser Highway. A dearth of housing has reached a “crisis level” throughout B.C. but especially in urban centres like Surrey, he added, which has the largest school district in the province with more than 78,000 students.
“We are now 25,000 students larger than the next closest school district. The city of Surrey has more portables than any other school district in British Columbia,” Bains told council.
He noted the school district may soon be forced to double-stack portables to save “precious” playground areas and that most schools in this city are over capacity, “some as high as 140 per cent of capacity and already have numerous portables.”
There are currently 361 portables in the city and the school board is seeking to purchase 30 more, he added.
“The Surrey Memorial Hospital maternity ward is currently birthing one classroom of babies every work day, that will be entering the school system in the future.”
On top of this, Bains noted, the provincial government has decided to integrate daycare into the public school system and that it takes three to five years to build a new school.
His notice of motion is expected to be voted on during council’s next meeting, set for May 15.
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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