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EDITORIAL: Surrey schools need more than hollow promises

The next B.C. government needs to step up with capital funding
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Grandview Heights Secondary School opened its doors in September 2021 and already needs an addition.

It was September 2016 when then-BC NDP leader John Horgan hosted a press conference outside Katzie Elementary School in Clayton Heights calling for the complete elimination of all portables across the Surrey school district over the following four years. 

“We have a crisis in public education in this province and a government that seems oblivious to that,” he said as he hammered on the Liberal government of the day for not properly funding schools to address overcrowding. 

Coming up on eight years and two NDP government terms later, and we’ve seen significant progress on overcrowding in Surrey schools. 

Trouble is, that progress has all been heading one direction: downhill. Fast. 

At the time of Horgan’s announcement eight years ago there were 275 portables in the district. As of the end of this school year? More than 360. 

The Surrey school district says it would take $5 billion to address its capital needs right now – needs that are only going to grow as the population does. 

The district’s 2025/26 capital plan submission to the B.C. Ministry of Education calls for 20 new schools, 19 additions for existing schools, two school replacements, 21 site acquisitions and one seismic upgrade. 

Overcrowding is a particular issue at schools in the city centre and in South Surrey-White Rock. Take Grandview Heights, for instance, where the new high school that opened its doors in September 2021 already needs an addition – and where yet another new high school is already required to serve the rapidly growing neighbourhood. 

The provincial government response to date? Modular classrooms. 

Multiple Surrey elementary schools have already been announced on the list of those receiving prefabricated modules, and it’s probably a good guess that more will follow. 

Granted, they’re better than existing portables; they include washrooms, heating and air-conditioning, and multiple modulars can be attached together. But they’re a far cry from a fully fledged school with adequate gym and library space and designated spaces for specialty programs such as music — and they’re not even close to offering a permanent solution for the 80,000-and-counting students who attend school in Surrey. 

To quote Horgan from that long-ago September day: “The long term is to make sure that you’ve got facilities hard-wired for the needs of the community as it exists today and as it will exist in the future.” 

In a city that’s growing as fast as Surrey, that’s a tall order. 

Let’s hope that whoever forms government come October is prepared to put some big money on the table to start turning the tide on overcrowding that’s threatening to swamp Surrey schools altogether. 

And let’s hope that any promises we may hear on that front over the next four months aren’t empty ones. 

Because we’d hate to have to resurrect this editorial four years from now when yet another government has failed to put its money where its mouth is.