800-seat capacity boost for one of Surrey's most overcrowded schools

The growing use of temporary portable structures at Fleetwood Park Secondary School in Surrey. (Google Maps)

One of the most overcrowded public schools in Surrey is set to receive a major capacity boost.

The Government of British Columbia confirmed today it will set aside nearly $79 million for an expansion of Fleetwood Park Secondary School, located in the rapidly growing Fleetwood neighbourhood.

A new four-storey expansion building will be constructed at the high school’s campus to increase its capacity by 800 students using purpose-built permanent structures, bringing its total capacity from 1,200 to 2,000.

By 2029, the school will add approximately 20 classrooms, a neighbourhood learning centre, an Indigenous learning and meeting space, and a childcare facility.

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According to the provincial government’s enrolment statistics, Fleetwood Park Secondary School had 1,932 students in the 2023/2024 school year — a steady climb over the past decade from 1,438 students in 2013/2014. To accommodate its current student population, the school relies on about a dozen temporary portable structures on a surface vehicle parking lot.

Today’s announcement comes in the lead-up to the October 2024 provincial election.

During the 2020 provincial election campaign, the BC NDP promised to expand Fleetwood Park Secondary School and Clayton Heights Secondary School by 500 students each.

Clayton Heights Secondary School saw its enrolment drop from 1,600 students in the 2017/2018 school year to 1,253 students in the 2018/2019 school year, which was due to the capacity relief brought on by the 2018 opening of the brand new Ecole Salish Secondary School.

However, in just six years, Clayton Heights Secondary School’s enrolment has almost returned to its previous 2017/2018 peak, now reaching 1,530 students as of the 2023/2024 school year. Since it opened six years ago, Ecole Salish Secondary’s enrolment has nearly doubled from 942 to 1,733 students.

According to the provincial government, nearly $900 million has been committed over the past seven years to boost Surrey’s school capacity by over 14,000 new students. This includes the 2023 announcement of adding hundreds of seats to Tamanawis Secondary School and Guildford Park Secondary School.

Earlier this summer, the provincial government also announced about $53 million to increase Surrey’s elementary school capacity by 875 students over the coming years, using new permanent prefabricated structures to expedite the much-needed capacity boost.

“We continue to make record investments to ensure families and students in Surrey have access to the services and classroom spaces they need to thrive,” said Rachna Singh, BC Minister of Education and Child Care, in a statement today.

“We are responding to the growing demand for student seats in Surrey, and we’re building this school addition with the learning and child care spaces that people in this community need.”

For years, Surrey’s school board and municipal officials have been calling for a significant increase in investments towards new permanent structures to keep up with the pace of the city’s population growth and reduce the growing reliance on temporary portable structures. There could be almost 400 portables at public schools across Surrey by September 2024.

Even five years ago, portables accommodated roughly about 10% of the population of 73,000 students at the time, and this has only grown ever since.

Officials of Surrey’s public school system have been warning about the possible need to use stacked portable structures.

Also, starting in September 2024, five secondary schools facing growing overcrowding issues — Fleetwood Park, Grandview Heights, Lord Tweedsmuir, Kwantlen Park, and Tamanawis — will see extended school days to enable the addition of one class block. This will enable expanded staggered student attendance, which increases school capacity by 10% to 15%.

“Surrey schools welcome hundreds of new students each month, and the 2024-25 school year will be no different,” said Laurie Larsen, chair of the Surrey Board of Education, today.

“This much-needed addition is one in a series of important steps to help create the type of learning environment Surrey students deserve. It will feature dedicated space for students with diverse learning needs and a variety of collaborative learning spaces designed to respond to the student community.”

Significant densification, especially in areas near the future stations of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension, will further propel student enrolment demand in Surrey over the coming decades.

For example, Fleetwood Park Secondary School is close to future SkyTrain stations in Fleetwood. The City of Surrey’s new Fleetwood Plan for densifying the area around the stations calls for up to 100,000 more residents.

The Clayton Corridor Plan is also expected to add tens of thousands of residents further down the future SkyTrain line within the catchment of Clayton Heights Secondary School.

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