The New Westminster school district is looking for $117 million from the B.C. Ministry of Education to keep up with enrolment pressure in the fast-growing Queensborough neighbourhood.
Queensborough’s school needs are front and centre in the School District 40 capital plan submission for 2024-25.
Among the district’s top priorities is extra money for the long-awaited Queen Elizabeth Elementary School expansion.
Funding for a 13-classroom, 325-student expansion was first announced in 2021. At the time, construction was expected to begin in the summer of 2022, with the expansion completed in early 2024. But construction got slowed down by the complexities of the site, which is small and sits below a floodplain.
Now, with construction still not started, SD40 is hoping to get another $6.9 million from the province to add eight more classrooms to the plans.
Secretary-treasurer Bettina Ketcham explained that addition would allow the district to bring Grade 5 students — who are currently at the middle school — back into the elementary school.
The request ties in with a big-ticket item in the district’s capital plan submission: $95.6 million for an addition to Queensborough Middle School.
With that expansion, the district plans to make space for a secondary wing at the school, allowing high school students from Queensborough to attend school in their own neighbourhood.
Ketcham said that request is designed to address both the transportation challenges for Queensborough students heading to New Westminster Secondary School and the capacity pressures facing NWSS.
Going hand-in-hand with that request is a request for $14.4 million for land acquisition that would allow the middle school expansion to take place.
Last year, the district had asked for $20 million for land acquisition in Queensborough; Ketcham noted that request has come down because the district was able to buy some land last year to “chip away” at the needs of the neighbourhood.
In total, the SD40 capital plan submission to the Ministry of Education outlines more than $300 million in funding for new schools, additions, renovations and land acquisition. You can find a full report in the agenda for the June 20 school board meeting.
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