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UPDATE: $30 million in seismic upgrades coming to two Burnaby schools

More than three years after the provincial government announced seismic-upgrade funding for Alpha Secondary, the Burnaby school district finally has the money to start the job. Work on the $27.

More than three years after the provincial government announced seismic-upgrade funding for Alpha Secondary, the Burnaby school district finally has the money to start the job.

Work on the $27.2-million project, which includes a partial replacement of the school, is expected to begin in spring 2016 and be complete by summer 2018, according to a ministry of education funding announcement Wednesday.

“These improvements and classroom additions are part of the province's award-winning seismic mitigation program that provides children, teachers and staff with safe, modern and protected learning environments," said Burnaby North MLA Richard Lee, who made the announcement at Alpha Secondary on behalf of Education Minister Mike Bernier.

The school board had already jumped the final hurdle in the funding process a week before, passing a pair of capital project bylaws last Tuesday – one for Alpha and another for Montecito Elementary.

“This actually is providing access to the funds, so the next step for us is to solidify an agreement for an architect,” secretary-treasurer Greg Frank told the NOW last week.

After some detailed design work over the winter, he said the district hopes to start prep work on the two sites as early as May or June.

Alpha and Montecito were among 24 Burnaby schools assessed by the province to be at high or moderate risk of damage during a major quake.

The district had hoped to see 60-year-old Alpha replaced entirely but was told funding wasn’t available.

The project will now see a partial replacement of the school, with the three-storey and one-storey classroom wings being replaced and the rest of the building undergoing seismic upgrades.

The work will increase the school’s student capacity from 1,025 to 1,100.

Detailed plans have yet to be drawn up, but Alpha principal Paul Fester hopes the new buildings will include some common, collaborative spaces, currently lacking in the two classroom blocks.

“To be honest, that would be my one big thing,” he said. “The rest of it, I think, will just happen by nature of it being a new building, but if we have collaborative, common spaces as we go into the new curriculum, I think that will allow us to be able to enact that new curriculum in a different way that’s challenging in our current building.”

The $3.8-million Montecito project, meanwhile, will see the addition of four classrooms, increasing the school’s student capacity from 215 to 315.

The extra space will allow the school to get rid of three temporary portables Montecito students have been using since 1997, according to principal Deb Taylor.

“We’re really excited about the addition of the four rooms,” she said. “The portables don’t all have running water. They don’t have washrooms, so it’s a bit of an inconvenience in the classrooms for the teachers. It’s more difficult for the teachers and the kids to be part of the school.”

Seismic funding for Montecito was first announced in April 2013.

The province announced funding for Burnaby North Secondary and Stride Avenue Elementary at the same time, but no firm timelines have been announced for those projects.