Provincial funding for new Olympic Village elementary school expected soon

Conceptual artistic rendering of Olympic Village Elementary School. (Vancouver School Board)

No capital funding for the construction of the long-envisioned new Olympic Village elementary school was included in the 2024 provincial budget announced today.

But when asked during a closed session for media, BC Minister of Finance Katrine Conway quipped that an announcement would be forthcoming in the “coming weeks.”

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An elementary school serving the growing high-density residential neighbourhood in Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek area has been planned by the municipal government since the 2000s. In more recent years, municipal officials, residents in the area, and parents of nearby schools experiencing long waitlists at their at-capacity catchment school have been calling for the provincial government to expedite funding for the project.

The BC NDP included an Olympic Village elementary school as a campaign promise in the 2020 election, and the last formal update provided on the project was in June 2022, when the BC Ministry of Education and Child Care provided the concept plan with preliminary approval, enabling Vancouver School Board to enter the next stage of planning.

A forthcoming funding announcement for this project also comes ahead of the general provincial election later in 2024.

In accordance with the City of Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek Plan, the new school will be located on a temporary open grassy parcel on the east side of Hinge Park — the parcel at the southwest corner of the intersection of Athletes Way and Columbia Street, next to the seawall.

In 2021, VSB and Vancouver City Council approved a 99-year lease for the use of the City-owned site for an elementary school.

Vancouver City Council and the Vancouver School Board (VSB) announced today they have approved entering into a 99-year lease for the school site.

Olympic Village Southeast False Creek school

Master plan of Southeast False Creek, which includes the Olympic Village. The location of the planned elementary school at Hinge Park is circled in red. (City of Vancouver/Daily Hive)

olympic village elementary school location

Site of the future Olympic Village elementary school. (City of Vancouver)

The large open grassy site at Hinge Park in Vancouver’s Olympic Village is slated to become an elementary school and daycare. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Based on a previous VSB facilities plan, this Kindergarten to Grade 7 school could have a capacity for over 500 students and incorporate a childcare facility, with an elementary school and childcare facility co-location increasingly common for new build projects.

Conway also faced questions about the provincial government’s urgency to respond to the City of Surrey and Surrey School District’s (SSD) pleas to direct more capital funding to ramp up the pace of building new permanent purpose-built structures to replace Surrey’s growing dependency on portable structures — including the future possibility of two-storey portable structures — and the community’s continued high enrolment due to high population growth.

By the new school year starting in September 2024, there could be almost 400 portables at public schools across Surrey. As of 2019, about 10% of SSD’s students were already in portables.

Coincidentally, today, SSD announced it will resort to extending the school day at five of its most crowded secondary schools to address capacity challenges, including at Grandview Heights Secondary, Fleetwood Park Secondary, Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary, Kwantlen Park Secondary, and Tamanawis Secondary. This will start in September 2024.

An extended school day will enable a staggered student attendance schedule to increase each school’s capacity by 10% to 15%. This extended school day involves lengthening the school day by one block/class period, so there will be five blocks instead of four blocks.

By May 2024, SSD will decide on whether it will deploy the same extended school day strategy at Fraser Heights Secondary and Salish Secondary.

“Extended day isn’t an option we want to implement. We know there are likely going to be challenges for our staff, our students, and their families. Our preference is to construct new schools and additions in neighbourhoods where they’re needed, but we have to explore other options while we continue to advocate for provincial funding,” said Laurie Larsen, chair of the SSD, in a statement.

“We’re at a point now where it’s very difficult for us to accommodate any additional student enrolment growth in the existing infrastructure we have, particularly at our secondary schools where the majority of our schools are significantly over capacity.”

north surrey secondary school portables f

Portable structures at North Surrey Secondary School. (Google Maps)

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