No school in Grimston, school board decides
Grimston Park will be protected space, and will not be considered as a future school site according to last night’s school board vote. This is great for the West End, who would have lost its only large park, but leaves New West in a bit of a pickle. New schools must be built, but where? To further complicate matters, our school district is facing a $2 million budget shortfall. We have neither time, nor money, nor resources. So what to do?
Some creative thinking is called for! Some of the ideas I’ve heard kicked around include:
- Sending some New West kids to Burnaby schools (working with that city’s school authorities, of course … though attending by stealth would be funnier … I’m picturing balaclava-clad kids scurrying across Tenth every morning, hiding behind bushes and trees like you’d see in some Merrie Melodies cartoon … maybe that’s just funny to me)
- Building a new high school in Queensborough, where there’s a little more room to breathe
- Building multi-storey elementary schools instead of single-storey
- Building parking lots underground in order to build on smaller lots (not currently funded by the province, but that should change IMHO)
Any other ideas? At this point I’m wondering if I should be planning to homeschool!
More from Tenth To The Fraser:
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- Choice in public education most important to James Janzen [school board] School trustee candidate James Janzen was the first to respond...
- Brenda McEachern Keen questions if business company is best use of school resources [school board] Brenda McEachern Keen would like to improve the structural readiness...
- Jim Goring: ‘We need to make the right choices to attract and retain students and teachers’ [school board] Jim Goring wants to explore how New Westminster can better...
- Glen Richmond wants to see more play space, fewer portables [school board] Trustee candidate Glen Richmond would like to see more play...
I don't understand why multi storey is considered verboten? Also, Queensborough would be ideal given the amount of families flocking to that area. (PS: homeschooling is my choice regardless of what the school board decides.)
It’s just not the way things have been done. And I think the province restricts what kind of building types are supported (no underground parking, for example). To my mind, we need to push those boundaries in New West, because it’s just not feasible to continue following “the way it’s always been”. I believe multi-storey may cost more but when we have the land issues we do, I think the cost is justifiable.
New West is so tiny… I think we have to think outside the box and I think the various governments should be happy about that.
First, underground parking is allowed and in use…Spencer has underground parking. Next, there is a significant cost related to the increase in height of a school; once a building exceeds three or four stories the construction costs become prohibitive and that is why the Board is not looking at increasing the height of the schools beyond three or four levels. And finally, Queensborough is a great site for schools…for the people who live in Queensborough there is a top quality elementary and middle school.
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