Surrey district says 22 new schools needed; City fears that’s not enough

Surrey needs to build almost two dozen new schools over the next 10 years, according to the latest projections from B.C.’s biggest school district.

However, some on Surrey City Council are questioning whether that is enough.

Surrey Schools presented its latest school population projections to council on Monday. The report predicted a net increase of 10,998 school-aged children in the district over the next decade, requiring an additional 22 new schools, one expansion and one replacement at an estimated cost of over $931 million.

The population projection is based on the development of an estimated 58,720 residential units in Surrey and White Rock over the next 10 years.

But Coun. Pardeep Kooner argued the projections are too low.

“I hate to keep saying this over and over again, but I am concerned about the numbers. I believe one-third of our population is under the age of 18, and, if I’m looking at the numbers that the school district is predicting for the school-aged children, it’s looking like it’s about 18 per cent. I’m not sure what we need to do to get these numbers to jibe. It’s hard to plan when we don’t have accurate information.”

Coun. Mike Bose agreed with Kooner, suggesting the school district needs to reconsider the formula it uses to predict student population.

“With 58,000 units projected and only 11,000 students, it seems a little out of whack. Whether the numbers are right or wrong, what we’ve seen in the past is that the provincial government does not want to fully fund the educational system in Surrey.”

Bose said the province can not be trusted to build the schools Surrey needs.

“We need schools now. We have 400 portables, and 7,000 students in those portables. We need to send a message and use our political clout to convince the province to fully fund education in the City of Surrey.”

Mayor Brenda Locke reiterated that need.

“It’s always a challenge for us to look at these reports because we know that our school district is just not funded enough, and our schools are just grossly overcrowded.”

Surrey city council voted to support the district’s 2026-2027 school sites proposal, which the school board will now submit to the Ministry of Education and Child Care for funding consideration.