Briana Tomkinson
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

No school in Grimston, school board decides

Grimston Park will be protected space, and will not be considered as a future school site according to last night's school board vote. This is great for the West End, who would have lost its only large park, but leaves New West in a bit of a pickle. New schools must be built, but where? To further complicate matters, our school district is facing a $2 million budget shortfall. We have neither time, nor money, nor resources. So what to do?

Some creative thinking is called for! Some of the ideas I've heard kicked around include:

  • Sending some New West kids to Burnaby schools (working with that city's school authorities, of course ... though attending by stealth would be funnier ... I'm picturing balaclava-clad kids scurrying across Tenth every morning, hiding behind bushes and trees like you'd see in some Merrie Melodies cartoon ... maybe that's just funny to me)
  • Building a new high school in Queensborough, where there's a little more room to breathe
  • Building multi-storey elementary schools instead of single-storey
  • Building parking lots underground in order to build on smaller lots (not currently funded by the province, but that should change IMHO)

Any other ideas? At this point I'm wondering if I should be planning to homeschool!

Labels: , , ,

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous says at December 18, 2008 at 11:51 AM  

    I don't understand why multi storey is considered verboten? Also, Queensborough would be ideal given the amount of families flocking to that area.

    (PS: homeschooling is my choice regardless of what the school board decides.)

  2. Briana Tomkinson says at December 18, 2008 at 11:54 AM  

    It's just not the way things have been done. And I think the province restricts what kind of building types are supported (no underground parking, for example). To my mind, we need to push those boundaries in New West, because it's just not feasible to continue following "the way it's always been". I believe multi-storey may cost more but when we have the land issues we do, I think the cost is justifiable.

  3. Anonymous says at December 19, 2008 at 4:24 PM  

    New West is so tiny... I think we have to think outside the box and I think the various governments should be happy about that.

  4. trulium says at September 25, 2011 at 11:32 PM   This comment has been removed by the author.
  5. trulium says at September 25, 2011 at 11:57 PM  

    i have read your article its very interesting and attractive. i am very impressed. thanks for sharing it
    Health Clinics Westminster

Post a Comment

Blogger Templates by Blog Forum