Surrey BoT sounds alarm on school portables, wants ‘sweeping changes’ in new funding model
Posted September 7, 2018 5:47 am.
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SURREY (NEWS 1130) – There are too many portables for one of B.C.’s fastest growing cities. That’s the message from the Surrey Board of Trade, as we await Victoria’s new school funding model to be put in place.
The city’s business leaders see the situation as a challenge for our future workforce. Reducing the number of portables in Surrey is something the board has been pushing for since 2007.
CEO Anita Huberman has high hopes for the province’s new school funding model, which is set to be revealed later this year.
“We’re hoping for sweeping changes,” she said.
“That is the only way that we, as the Surrey Board of Trade, think that we can counter this ongoing portable and space issue for Surrey schools. We have the largest school district within British Columbia, it’s growing and we are just so tired that our kids have to be educated in portables.”
She added students deserve to learn in proper, efficient environments.
“Through the different levels of government, working in partnership, nothing really happened. We are hoping with this new government that attention is paid to it and that change and results happen to benefit Surrey.”
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The city’s population grows by 800 to 1,000 people every month. Huberman said there has to be a way capital planning can keep up with school enrolment.
“We need to have a way that the B.C. government can fund different areas within the province for high-growth communities. We have so many families who are moving into our city… There has to be a way for the government to be able to adapt expediently without it taking to years for funding to go where it is needed.”
She believes the key is to take a more proactive approach than a reactive one.
The Surrey Board of Trade also wants better support for vulnerable students — including children in care, children with special needs, and Indigenous students.
An independent panel is making recommendations for a new school funding formula, which the province is scheduled to announce this winter.
– With files from Hana Mae Nassar
