Nothing says back to school like the steel skeleton of a brand new secondary rising from its concrete foundation.
While the current Argyle Secondary opens its doors for the 2019-2020 school year on Tuesday, right next door, construction on the new $61-million Argyle school is in full swing.
Mark Thomson, project manager for the North Vancouver School District, stood in what will be the entrance hall Thursday, under glulam wooden beams.
On one side of the site, the roof deck is being installed, and plumbing and electrical is being put in on one of the academic wings, being built to include flexible classroom spaces around central hubs.
In four months, the other wing of the building will look similar, said Thomson.
Community use has also been built into the design, including access to an artificial turf field, funded by the District of North Vancouver.
“It was designed for kids but also for the community, said schools superintendent Mark Pearmain.
The school district is hoping students will be walking through the doors of the new Argyle school a year from now. The school district is also hoping to start construction on a new Handsworth Secondary in January, with a target opening date for that school of September 2021.
Seismic work has also begun on Mountainside Secondary.
About 22,000 students will head back to public school on the North Shore next week. Enrolment at the biggest school district – North Vancouver – is so far down by about 176 students this year – most of that at the high school level.
But areas of the school district still face enrolment pressures. A new portable was installed at Queen Mary over the summer, said Pearmain, while “Queensbury is full” and Brooksbank is also approaching capacity. Ridgeway Elementary continues to operate with a modular classroom as well as two portables.
A request to the province for a new school at the old Cloverley school site – which was not approved this spring – remains at the top of the school district’s wish list.
In neighbouring West Vancouver, school enrolment is unexpectedly up this year, said associate superintendent Sean Nosek.
Between 80 and 100 applications came in over the summer from families living in West Vancouver who weren’t on the school district’s radar before, said Nosek. “That’s perhaps double what we might see over the normal course of the summer,” he said. Most of those students are coming in at the elementary level, he said.
The new enrolments will bring the number of students to about 7,500, including about 500 international students. “We could be looking at one of our largest enrolments ever,” said Nosek. “Almost all of our schools are operating at capacity.”
French immersion and academy programs continue to be popular, said Nosek, noting in recent years there has been an expansion of academies not related to sports, such as the popular robotics program.
Those have helped draw students from across the Lower Mainland: between 20 and 25 per cent of West Vancouver’s students don’t actually live in the municipality.
In recent years, the school district has also seen a marked increase in numbers of English language learner students, who currently make up about 16 per cent of the student population.
At some schools, such as Chartwell and Hollyburn, and at some of the elementary grade levels, that percentage is much higher.
Class composition is an issue that continues to be on the radar of West Vancouver teachers, said Rene Willock, president of the West Vancouver Teachers Association.
Unlike many other school districts, West Vancouver teachers do not have limits on class sizes and composition written into their contracts.
West Vancouver teachers are also paid less than teachers in many other districts, said Willock.
Hovering in the background as the school year begins is the collective bargaining of the B.C. Teachers Federation, being conducted provincially with the help of a mediator under a media blackout.
Education Minister Rob Fleming said this week he is hopeful a deal will be reached.
In a media press conference, Fleming stressed the government’s commitment to helping students with assistance in areas such as mental health. “We know kids face challenges that previous generations did not,” particularly in areas such as social media, said Fleming.
North Vancouver expects to pilot some programs on mental health at the elementary school level this year, said Pearmain.
In West Vancouver, the school district is placing an emphasis on “physical literacy” said Nosek. This includes basic skills such as skipping, jumping and throwing.
