Timetable changes at New Westminster Secondary School may be one of the short-term answers to deal with space challenges in the New Westminster school district.
School District 40 has an ongoing struggle with capacity shortages in all its schools, as population growth in New West is outstripping the pace of new school construction.
It has a few new school projects in the works at various stages of the approval process with the Ministry of Education.
SD40 has already received approval and funding for a 13-classroom expansion at Queen Elizabeth Elementary School in Queensborough, which is projected for completion in 2025.
It has received concept plan approval for a 600-student elementary school at the Fraser River Middle School site, and the ministry has given the go-ahead for the district to acquire land for a new middle school on the west side of the city. Neither of those plans has yet received funding.
In the meantime, the district must find ways to fit all its students in classrooms.
“We are looking to navigate the short-term pressures that we’re feeling until those schools and those facilities are indeed built and we get students in those facilities,” secretary-treasurer Bettina Ketcham said at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.
Among the short-term strategies it’s looking at are interior renovations and portables at some school sites. As of the fall of 2022, there were a total of 42 portable classrooms already in the district, and not all school sites have space for more.
Other options, Ketcham said, may be questions of programming — such as international education — and the possibility of modifying timetables at NWSS.
Those ideas will return to the board for more discussion at its operations committee meeting on Oct. 10.
