SURREY — The provincial Liberal government has earmarked $217 million in funding for Surrey's schools over the next three years, to accommodate 5,200 more students.
Education Minister Mike Bernier made the announcement at the Surrey Board of Education Office in Newton Thursday morning.
He also said a "Surrey Project Office" will be set up, comprised of "experts" including engineers, ministry staff and Surrey School District officials to steer the development.
"Projects like this are going to bring over 600 jobs to Surrey," Bernier said.
Surrey school board chairman Shawn Wilson said that as a result of this announcement, the Surrey School District is "now in the best position we have ever been in to get ahead of enrolment growth."
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Marvin Hunt, Liberal MLA for Surrey-Panorama, said it will make a "wonderful difference."
The money will be for new schools and additions to existing ones, Bernier said. "It's a combination of both."
Asked if the provincial general election on May 9 has anything to do with the timing of this announcement, Bernier replied "We make announcements all the time" and that the government has been working on this "for over a year. We've been working on this for quite a long time."
He said the Liberal government has added 12,000 new student seats in Surrey since 2011, has reduced the number of school portables in this city by 100. On the number of portables all told, he said, "We're going to drastically reduce that number."
Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman praised the funding announcement, but "more importantly the key ingredient of a structured join executive board to oversee, and determine priorities in Surrey is integral to ensure that our students move out of portable."
“The Surrey Board of Trade continues to advocate for a formal long-term sustainable funding formula is recommended as the next step for education K-12 infrastructure in Surrey," Huberman added.
The Surrey Board of Trade believes that education and transportation are economic foundations to building a city and supporting businesses.
“If we have education today, we will have continued productivity tomorrow.”
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This year alone, Surrey school enrolment grew by more than 1,000 students.
It was the first time enrolment growth exceeded 1,000 in the more than a decade.
And, the district projects that another 11,000 additional students will arrive within the next 10 years.
Last May, Premier Christy Clark visited Surrey’s Panorama Park Elementary school to announce 2,700 more student spaces for the overcrowded district.
The spots include 600 new seats through “rapid expansion projects" at Sullivan, Woodward Hill and Panorama Park elementary schools.
The remaining 2,100 student spaces will be created through two new schools, said Clark - a Grandview Heights secondary (expected to be completed by the end of 2020) and a Clayton North elementary (expected to be completed by the end of 2019).
Those spaces came with a price tag of $100 million. The province will foot about $74 million of the bill, with the district shelving out the rest.
While the Surrey school district has about 4,600 student spaces being built or in the planning stages right now, nearly 7,000 more are requested in this year’s capital plan.
Projects already on the books include some that were completed last fall. Those were 140 new seats at Rosemary and Morgan Heights elementary schools through additions, and 240 seats at Adam’s Road Elementary.
Under construction is a new 1,500-seat Salish Secondary school, hoped to be complete by September 2018.
A slew of other projects were approved in May 2016 and are in the planning stage, which include 1,500 new seats through a new Grandview secondary (completion in 2020) and a new 650-seat elementary in Clayton North (completion set for 2019).
As well, a site in Port Kells was acquired last October. And three additions to Woodward Hill, Sullivan and Panorama Park elementaries are planned, which will work out to another 600 seats (as promised by Clark).
But that’s just projects approved, before Thursday's announcement.
High priority projects requested by the district include new elementary schools in Grandview ($19 million), Clayton ($21 million) and South Newton ($39 million).
Additions are requested for Sullivan and Pacific Heights ($29 million).
The district also hopes to get yet another new school site in the Grandview area ($35 million), additions to a number of Fleetwood elementary schools ($8 million) and a new Douglas area elementary ($19 million).
Clayton Elementary also needs a “significant” addition ($24 million), which is almost as big as a new school because that site is so small.
— Amy Reid contributed to this story