Sketch plans for new additions at two elementary schools did not go over so well with trustees at the recent Surrey school board meeting.
Old Yale Road and Latimer Road elementaries will be getting prefabricated modular additions at each school site, with the sketch plans unveiled at the regular March 12 school board meeting by architect Bassem Tawfik from KMBR Architects Planners Inc.
An issue of note for trustee Laurie Larsen is the lack of new parking at Latimer Road, even with the six-classroom addition.
"There’s already not enough parking for the existing staff, let alone for any parents that come to pick up their children," she said.
"I’ve dropped a kid off at that school for almost six years so I know it, it’s horrendous and there’s a lot of parking on 192 (Street) that draws on a lot of people's driveways and they get towed, so I am dismayed that we are having a new addition with extra staff need but no extra staff parking."
Capital projects director Dave Riley admitted that the school, "like all of our schools has insufficient parking," but there is not enough ministry funding to create more parking spots at the school, he added.
"So where are the staff going to park?" Larsen insisted, but Riley said he did not have a good answer for her.
"If I was a teacher I'd be pretty dismayed," Larsen said.
The addition, consisting of six classrooms, a special education room, a universal washroom and a staff room, will be placed on an existing play area and encroach onto a grass field. The basketball court and playground will be relocated where the existing six portables are and will remain.
"That would normally be a place that we would normally all be expecting children to be playing in," trustee Terry Allen said about where the portables are.
According to the board, portable moves will not take place at any schools as the $100,000 price tag per portable move is not affordable. While the district has appealed to the Education Ministry to fund the moves, Riley has said the extra funding is not forthcoming.
"Somebody, somehow has to come with some kind of common sense that we don’t need existing portables when we’re having a very nice addition being put on the school (site)," Allen added.
"I like the sketch plan, I have no problem with the sketch plan. The fact that I’m going to inherit six portables that we don’t need kind of bothers me."
This project is expected to be ready for students by June 2026.
In the case of Old Yale Road Elementary, the constructed addition close but not attached to the school also brought some issues for trustees.
The two-storey, 17 classroom addition will call for the creation of a new parking lot, the basketball court to be relocated and the moving of one portable to another area on site.
Larsen made her wishes clear to have covered walkways along the school, but Tawfik said it's not possible due to city codes which would increase the cost of the project beyond the budget.
With the school in a busy area in Whalley, which is just expected to grow more, trustee Laurae McNally requested extra lighting along Old Yale Road in front of the modular for nighttime.
"I’ve been out on Halloween patrols with our facilitator people way too many years, and I know where these kids hide that they’re (going to) throw off their firecrackers and that is a classic there," McNally said, to which the architect said that will be considered.
Riley shared that due to population growth, on opening day, expected to be November 2026, the school will be close to full "and the growth will continue from that point onwards."
"This part of Surrey is growing very very quickly along with many other areas and so we did ask for a 17-classroom addition here, which is what we got."
