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The Surrey Civic Coalition welcomes the new schools Premier Clark is promising on the eve of the civic election but says it
falls far short of what Surrey needs.

SCC says six schools are needed immediately and eight more, a total of 14 schools, are needed to keep up with Surrey’s growth in the next few years.

“Surrey has been starved for new schools for years, so any announcement of new school construction is most welcome. But the reality is, this is less than the Board had hoped for. Surrey has gone from being six years behind to being four years behind,” said Ijaz Chatha, the lone SCC School Trustee.

“Surrey is not going to stop growing, so we have to plan right now for the years ahead. If we have to wait until three weeks before the next civic election for the next announcement, we will be no better off than the crisis we’re in now.”

Charlene Dobie, another SCC candidate, said, “Surrey needs six schools right now just to clear the backlog of overcrowded schools, students on shifts, classes in staffrooms, and hundreds of portables. We need emergency funding right now just to clear up the backlog and we need a long-term strategy so that we don’t fall this far behind again.”

SCC candidate Laurence Greeff said, “Surrey has about 7,000 students in portables, some of whom spend more time in portables than the school itself. This announcement will certainly help but we’ve still go a long way to go. Even with today’s construction announcement, thousands of children will remain in portables for at least another decade.

“We need to work together with parents and the community to mount a very strong lobby to address our immediate needs. This photo-op announcement once again leaves Surrey asking where’s our fair share of funding for school construction.”

Ram Sidhu is a mother of two young children who is also running for a trustee seat with SCC. She said, “Although the announcement of two new schools and two additions is welcome news for our children, it falls far short of Surrey’s immediate needs.

“Surrey is years behind in school construction. We are a vibrant, growing community that needs to plan ahead for new schools for many years. But we also need to catch up in time for kids who are students now. ”

for further information:

Ijaz Chatha  778-883-0161
Charlene Dobie  778-899-9151
Laurence Greeff  604-307-3617
Ram Sidhu  604-354-8652

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