Construction didn’t even let up during the official ground breaking ceremony for the École Fraser River Middle School on Thursday.
Excavation carried on in the background, while board chair Jonina Campbell, vice-chair Michael Ewen, Mayor Wayne Wright, Qayqayt Chief Rhonda Larrabee and North Vancouver-Seymour MLA Jane Thornthwaite spoke at the event.
“We raised the question of should we shut things down or not, and basically decided that we would just keep things going, that the sooner this gets done the better,” Ewen said from the podium.
Then, touching on the long-awaited replacement for New Westminster Secondary School, Ewen added, “I don’t get to say much, other than it’s two down and one to go.”
While the event was meant to mark construction of the middle school, which is part of the district’s bid to build three new schools in the city, the long-awaited high school seemed to be on the mind of the locals who spoke.
The replacement of New Westminster Secondary School is the final piece in a three-school plan for the city, but the district and the province have yet to reach a project agreement to start construction to replace the 60-plus-year-old school. The high school was built over an old cemetery and, as a result, the province is still reviewing the complex and costly project.
Speaking from the podium, Campbell noted some people have suggested they build the high school elsewhere to avoid the site issues at the high school, but she noted that the city's size is just 15-square kilometres.
“I know a lot of people have suggested we build a high school somewhere else, and I said, ‘Where?’” Campbell said. “There just isn’t a lot of space.”
Campbell also mentioned the city’s strong “partnership” in finding shared space with the district to help get the two schools built – along with the middle school, the new École Qayqayt Elementary is slated to open in the fall.
Wright also alluded to the city’s hope to get schools built in New Westminster.
“City council and our citizens are so anxious to get the city schools up, because we are bringing the people in, we have the children being born here, we’ve got the children that need their education here, so the sooner the better … so don’t stop them from working,” Wright joked.
Ewen started the event by acknowledging that they were on the traditional territory of the Qayqayt First Nation and introduced Larabee, who offered a blessing for the new school, which is expected to open in September 2015.
The B.C. government has committed approximately $19.8 million to create this new school in New West, Thornthwaite told the crowd.
École Fraser River Middle School will have 20 classrooms for up to 500 students in grades 6 to 8. John Robson, which was built in 1928, will be torn down and replaced by the new school.
