New West parent launches petition to advocate for new high school

A New Westminster parent has launched a petition calling for a new high school in his neighbourhood as the school district deals with a capacity crisis.

Tony Chee lives in the Queensborough neighbourhood, and with three kids, he says it’s very restricting having only one high school in the city. New Westminster Secondary School is one of the largest schools in British Columbia, with around 24 hundred students from grades 9 through 12, according to the school’s website.

Chee says there are major challenges trying to bus students to the school from Queensborough. He adds that one of his children attends New Westminster Secondary and they eat their lunch under a staircase due to the overcrowding.

“It’s just not working,” he told 1130 NewsRadio. “There’s too many kids, the population here is growing, but if you take a drive through our area you’ll see how much development has gone and happened in such a short period of time.”

“What’s it going to take? Does it take a serious accident where a kid can’t get out of the emergency door quick enough because of crowding? Is that what it’s going to take before somebody realizes that we have a serious issue here, a serious crisis?”

Chee’s petition is calling on city council to pen a letter to the Ministry of Education to recognize the capacity crisis New Westminster schools are dealing with.

“We need to see some action go forward…and if it’s as simple as just penning a letter to acquire land, I don’t see why that can’t happen,” Chee said.

On Monday, New Westminster’s city council discussed a motion by Councillor Daniel Fontaine to write such a letter to support the school district’s requests to acquire a site and build a new high school in Queensborough.

“We have no high school in Queensborough and in the Hamilton area and I wanted to send a very clear message to Victoria that this will likely take eight to 10 years to construct and we need to get going on putting this as a priority,” he said.

Fontaine said despite the school being desperately needed, his motion was ultimately “watered down” through an amendment after a letter was received from School Board Chair Maya Russell. Russell’s letter states that while the district remains grateful for the council’s past and present support of their mandates, the district is not requesting a school in Queensborough at this time.

“Our priority in Queensborough has been to complete the expansion of Queen Elizabeth Elementary School, which is nearing the end of pile-driving stage,” Russell said. “High school capacity in Queensborough is included in our Long-Range Facilities Plan but we have several more pressing short and mid-term priorities.”

Fontaine claims documents from the school district do state that constructing a high school in Queensborough is a priority, and is left frustrated by the miscommunication.

“To me, there’s a complete disconnect between what the province is funding, what the province is prepared to commit and what the school district is publicly advocating for and what the people want,” said Fontaine.

In an email, Communications Manager Mike Lee with School District No. 40 said a second letter is being prepared for the district to clarify their position on a new Queensborough secondary school.

“In short, a new secondary school is part of our capital plan, but is not an immediate priority,” Lee said. “Our immediate priorities are the new downtown elementary school (Simcoe Elementary), purchasing land to build another middle school, and a modular project at Lord Tweedsmuir Elementary.”

There’s no estimated time on when this second letter will be sent out.