B.C. minister defends progress on building more schools in Surrey

B.C.'s infrastructure minister has defended her government's progress on building more schools in Surrey, even as two more schools in the city will shift to a staggered schedule to deal with overcrowding.

Fraser Heights and Sullivan Heights secondary schools will shift to having class times adjusted to start earlier, and end later, in order to squeeze a fifth block of classes into the daily schedule.

That means eight schools in B.C.'s largest school district will have staggered schedules in total, as the Surrey School District's long-running overcrowding problems continue to lead to parent frustration.

District officials have defended the practice of extending days and say staff have been able to manage the workload, while the minister responsible for building more infrastructure has said around $1 billion has been spent on new schools and school additions in Surrey since 2017.

Parents, however, say that officials aren't moving fast enough to deal with a problem that has festered for years, and students' futures are getting caught in the crossfire.

"The inconsistency is completely disruptive and the inequity, and lack of awareness of the inequity, is astounding," said Cindy Dalglish, whose daughter studies at Salish Secondary School, which was on staggered start times last year.

"These decisions are not student centred at all."

Dalglish said the inconsistency in school starting times means that parents have to juggle work responsibilities to get their kids to school and extracurriculars and study schedules are thrown in flux daily.

"We already have, you know, a high level of curriculum coming into them," the parent said. "She is one of those go-getter kids that has really hard, hard classes .... they're cramming more into these [classes] this time."

Sally Huang, the president of the Fraser Heights Secondary parent advisory committee, said that the staggered start times were also hard on staff, even as she acknowledged staggered start times were preferable to online learning.

"The Surrey students' population growth is not new news," she said. "It has been steadily growing [over] the years, especially since COVID and a lot of young families, we heard, moved here looking for affordable housing.

"So why hasn't the government kept up with that reality? Why hasn't there been a timely capital investment in new schools and classrooms?"

Terry Allen, the vice-chair of the Surrey Board of Education, defended the staggered start times, and commended staff for dealing with the added workload.

Allen said the feedback the school board has received has been positive, and he was disappointed to learn that parents weren't satisfied with their kids' learning experience.