It wasn't the most typical school announcement on Thursday morning as a horde of children cheered, waved and applauded as officials announced the opening of a new addition at a Surrey elementary school.
Walnut Road Elementary's new prefabricated two-storey addition with 295 extra seats is open to students, eliminating the need for the 10 portables at the school, Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma announced Thursday morning (June 5) at the school.
Along with Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Jagrup Brar, school representatives and district officials, a press conference was held as children played outdoors during recess in two separate splits, as the school has too many kids and not enough space for all 870 students to play at once.
"This addition ensures that Surrey continues to be a strong community," Brar said.
The new addition came with an $18-million price tag, according to Ma, and took a total of 17 months to construct and bring to the school, much quicker than a constructed addition attached to an existing school. Prefabricated additions are an increasing presence at growing school districts, with this being the second one to open in Surrey. The first was at Lena Shaw Elementary, and another is coming soon to Woodland Park Elementary.
"I don't need to tell anyone here how much Surrey has grown in recent years — you've all experienced it, and with that growth comes the responsibility to support our schools," the minister said. "We remain committed to working closely with school districts across municipalities to build so that we can ensure all students have an engaging space."
This new addition brings exactly what Surrey schools need — more space — however, a different issue persists. Surrey's school board has stated since the beginning of the school year that they no longer have enough funding to move portables from one school site to another, even if they sit empty.
At Walnut Road, that may mean that 10 unused portables would remain at the school, taking up even more play space for children to enjoy.
"This is a conversation that regularly comes up from school districts, particularly growing school districts that have depended on portables for some time," Ma said in response to a PAN question about whether the province would step in to provide that extra funding to move portables to different schools that need the space.
Capital budgets for school districts only include the removal of portables that are obstructing the space for the new addition that the province funds.
"The challenge comes where a portable does not need to be removed as part of a capital project. The school districts end up having to fund that through operations, and we've certainly heard from school districts that that's a significant challenge so it's feedback that we're taking to heart and we'll continue to work with school districts," Ma said.
As of 2024, students in Surrey are learning in 330 portables across the school district, the minister added, a rise of 36 from when the New Democrats first formed government in 2017 even after adding 15,000 extra seats to Surrey in expansions and new schools.
"We still have work to do because the population in this community is growing."
The prefabricated modules offer much more than portables, coming with soundproofing between classrooms, air conditioning and heat, all-gender washrooms and more.
When it comes to replacing the play space the modular takes up, that is still being figured out, board chair Gary Tymoschuk said.
"It's our hope to be able to replace the play space. ... At this point we haven't finalized those details, and it's certainly going to be a tight fit in the building and then outside for play time. I think it's going to be smaller at the end of the day, but we're going to do our best to find the space that we can," he added.
