New Westminster Family Place is looking for new space after finding out it will need to vacate its current premises at École Qayqayt Elementary School.
For the past 15 months, the organization — which provides programs and support for families with young children — has been working out of designated community space at the downtown school. The Neighbourhood Learning Centre (NLC) space was built under a provincial funding program that allows school districts to build new schools with extra space dedicated for community use.
Now, however, School District 40 is facing a space crunch. It needs to convert that NLC space to classrooms to help deal with rapid enrolment growth at the school — which has grown from 522 students in 2020/21 to 614 this fall. When it opened in 2014, it had just 400 students.
School board chair Gurveen Dhaliwal said it’s tough to displace an organization that has helped “thousands and thousands” of New West families.
“This decision obviously is a difficult decision because we are in a really big bind of capacity and needing to make sure students can go into their neighbourhood schools,” Dhaliwal said at the board’s Oct. 4 operations committee meeting. “(Family Place) is such a valuable service to our city, and we are so lucky to have them. It is awful that we can no longer house them within our schools.”
Qayqayt space is a 'dream' for New West Family Place
Dana Osiowy, executive director of New Westminster Family Place, recognizes the school district’s urgent need for the space.
“I do understand. It’s an actual crisis right now,” she told the Record. “It’s obviously painful for us and the school board.”
New Westminster Family Place formerly occupied a rented office at Sixth and Cunningham streets, but it moved out after its lease came up during the COVID-19 pandemic because it wasn’t possible to meet COVID guidelines there, Osiowy noted.
Then School District 40 stepped up and offered the Qayqayt space.
“It’s just been like a dream,” Osiowy said.
Not paying market rent freed up more of the organization’s budget to pay staff for full-time hours, with benefits. And the space itself has been ideal for housing its office and running programs for kids and parents.
“It’s beautiful. It has a commercial kitchen — it’s just a gorgeous space that has been so wonderful for us,” Osiowy said.
Being located right in the school has also allowed the families coming to their programs to develop connections to the school; former Family Place kids who are now in kindergarten continue to have relationships with Family Place staff. It also builds relationships between the educators on both teams, as Osiowy’s staff work alongside school staff to promote early learning.
“It creates that interconnected kind of feeling, where it’s really happy and healthy for kiddos,” Osiowy said. “We’re really creating this hug of early-year services in New West. It’s painful for all of us to have to rejig.”
Osiowy said the demand for services for New Westminster families is greater than ever.
“The need of families right now is weighing very heavy on our hearts,” she said.
New Westminster Family Place seeks new downtown space
Family Place programs at Qayqayt will continue for the 2022/23 school year, but Osiowy and her team are looking for a solution for next fall and beyond.
Family Place has a continuing partnership with Massey Theatre, where it runs four days of programming at the Eighth and Eighth arts space — and demand for those programs continues to grow.
But Osiowy said the organization needs downtown space as well, and that’s what she’s on a mission to find.
She’s flexible on what kind of space that is. It needs to have a room with capacity for at least 75 people, plus storage space and enough office space for two staffers to work. In Osiowy’s “dream world,” it would also have a kitchen.
Family Place is planning a fundraiser for later this fall: a silent auction and dance party at Centennial Lodge on Tuesday, Nov. 29.
They’ll also be doing community consultation, meeting with their partners and trying to figure out what options are available for a long-term solution.
In the meantime, Osiowy also welcomes anyone with a space that might be suitable to contact her — they can email info@newwestfamilies.ca, message her on Twitter (@danaosiowy) or call 604-520-3666.
“When we get our new space, we’ll be able to offer even more programming and resources for families,” she said. “There is nothing more joyful than to be able to support babies and little kids.”
SD40 capacity review looking at daycare, programs of choice and more
Moving Family Place out of Qayqayt is just one part of a multi-faceted plan by School District 40 to deal with the space shortage in its schools. It’s undertaking a capacity review to come up with other solutions while it awaits funding for and construction of a new elementary school on the Fraser River Middle School site.
Other ideas in the works are a proposal to move infant-toddler daycare spaces out of Fraser River Middle School and Qayqayt to other sites; a review of programs of choice (French immersion, Montessori and Home Learners) to determine where they should be located; and a review by an external consultant to determine how best to maximize space at New Westminster Secondary School.
A further report on the capacity review will come back to the board in March 2023.
Follow Julie MacLellan on Twitter @juliemaclellan.
Email Julie, jmaclellan@newwestrecord.ca
