Surrey School District spending $5-m on school expansions
Posted January 19, 2013 10:09 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – In an effort to get a kick start on fighting overcrowding schools, the Surrey School District is dishing out $5-million from its contingency fund.
Doug Strachan, Communications Manager with the Surrey School District says there are risks with doing this but trustees hope the province will give back the money.
“Of course the sooner the Ministry is able to do that the better and we do have an indication that will happen. It’s a rare move, if it has happened at all and I think it just shows the board is trying to respond as best it can to community concern for new schools.”
The money will be used to begin the architectural and design process on two new high schools and expansion for two elementary schools. The new high schools will be relieving the much crowded Earl Marriott, Clayton Heights, and Lord Tweedsmuir schools. While the elementary school expansions will be done to Adams Road and Rosemary Heights.
He says the board feels waiting for the province to dish out capital budgets is not an option anymore.
“There’s a lot of different processes in place now than there were several years ago and they tend to slow down to get the process to get the schools built while waiting for approvals for different stages of funding and that sort of thing.”
Strachan says the total cost for the projects is estimated at at least $80-million.
