After one year in office, Fassbender talks growing pains and Surrey education

FLEETWOOD — It’s been almost a year since Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Peter Fassbender stepped into office as Minister of Education, and coming up on that anniversary on June 10, he reflects that it hasn’t been without its growing pains.

In fact, the city has been growing at an exponential rate — so fast that it’s been dizzying for the city in terms of building schools, infrastructure and planning for the future of education. Surrey is not only the largest school district in British Columbia, but it’s also one of the few still expanding. And Fassbender is dead centre.

“What we’ve seen in Surrey is areas that have been developed, like here in Fleetwood,” Fassbender said from his Surrey office during a recent press luncheon, “you project that you’re going to have this kind of population living in those townhouses (but) when actual families move in, they may not look like what you projected … you project a population growth and all of the sudden … projections get way out of whack.”

He noted that population projection is “an imperfect science,” consisting, essentially, of guessing what types of families will occupy certain areas — and sometimes you get surprises. For example, a high school currently being planned for the Clayton Heights area had originally been projected to accommodate 1,000 students, but has since been reassessed to serve 1,500 students instead.

“It’s always a challenge to keep up with the growth. Surrey is one of the fastest growing communities in the country and we have a lot of immigration, a lot of cultural diversity,” Fassbender said. “Surrey’s challenge is size, the number of students we have in different areas, the cultural diversity in our community. We speak 151 languages and dialects in the city of Surrey.

“So when you look at that you realize it puts a lot of additional pressures on.”

Fassbender said that he, along with the area's citizens, have a bit of a learning curve to deal with when it comes to budgetary restrictions, adding that some people act as though the government “should just print more money.”

He is alluding to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation's job action, and budgetary restrictions on building more schools to accommodate the skyrocketing numbers of students in Surrey.

“The thing I get all the time is just, ‘We just need more money,’ and it’s easy to say and it may be true, the challenge is, where does the money come from?” he asked. “If you want me to put more money into education, where would you like me to take it from? Transportation? Health care?”

And while it may have been full of struggles, the past year hasn’t been all bad. In fact, Fassbender stresses that he’s the “eternal optimist”, making him the best person for the job.

“As the minister since I’ve been appointed in June last year, the Premier, my cabinet colleagues, all of us, are really trying to take the negativity out of our relationship (with the BCTF),” he proclaimed. “Of course we’re accused of doing the opposite but quite honestly, and I say this without any hesitation, I absolutely respect the importance of education to the future of our province, our country … I also respect the role of teachers, I respect their profession. I’m not sure that I always have the same kind of relationship with the union that represents that.”

As for the future of the province’s education system, Fassbender said that his aim is to square away whatever issues he has with the BCTF and other budgetary problems in order to “focus on learning outcomes for the students.”

Judging by the self-proclaimed eternal optimist’s confidence, by next June, the province might see just that.

Twitter @kristialexandra