Vancouver School Board votes to permanently shutter city’s oldest school

Emotions ran high Wednesday evening, as the Vancouver School Board voted in favour of formally closing the city’s oldest school building.

The board originally proposed the closure of Sir Guy Carleton Elementary, located on Kingsway near Joyce Street, citing safety concerns.

In 2016, a fire left the school ‘severely damaged.’ Sir Guy Carleton Elementary stopped enrolment in the same year, and no students have attended for nearly a decade.

The board also approved adjusting the Sir Guy Carleton Elementary catchment in 2023, so that students could be dispersed to other schools.

The board states that there have been attempts to restore the 129-year-old school in the past, but the provincial government has not provided funding.

The estimated costs to restore and seismically upgrade the building reached approximately $36 million in 2019, but the board says the costs would have increased or even doubled, based on current projects of the same size and complexity.

But the decision Wednesday was far from unanimous, as Trustee Suzie Mah brought forward a motion seeking to delay the vote, and instead re-engage with the province over funding to restore the building.

Ultimately, with no funding secured and the VSB confident there is enough capacity in surrounding schools, the fate of Sir Guy Carleton Elementary was sealed.

Some saw the meeting as a mere formality, for a decision already made.

For Linden Wong, a student at the time of the fire, the decision is a heartbreaking end to what was a joyous chapter of his childhood.

“I miss the teachers and staff. Those are the people that made me who I am today. Those are the people who shaped future leaders of the community,” Wong told The Leader Spirit.

At the time of the fire, then Board Trustee Patti Bacchus described the school as “the heart of the Collingwood community.” Bacchus views Wednesday’s decision as short-sighted.

“The whole city is growing. We know these big sites that are available for school facilities with playground area, play space, are going to be harder and harder, under pressure, to have in the future. So this is really, to me, selling out the future generations,” she said.

School Board Chair Victoria Jung understands the community’s concerns, but says she’s more focused on students than on a building.

“It was just a formal closure for a school that has been closed for ten years. And so this has no impact on the education of students in our district,” said Jung.

Now that the school’s future has been decided, the VSB will review alternate uses for the facility and the land on which Sir Guy Carleton Elementary stands.