A Burnaby school district proposal to roll a four-classroom addition into Montecito Elementary School's seismic upgrade project has been rejected by the province.
"At the school we have two portables that are at basically the end of life," secretary-treasurer Greg Frank told the NOW. "The school is over-enrolled. We have to bring in more portables for the actual seismic upgrading, and so what we were trying to do was, instead of bringing portables in, we wanted to actually build something."
The district proposed a four-classroom addition to one corner of the school that would have increased capacity while seismically bracing the existing building, according to Frank.
The province rejected the $3-million plan some months back, he said, and the district is now focused on moving ahead with just the seismic upgrades.
Fifteen of 24 Burnaby schools assessed in 2002 as high risk in the event of a major earthquake are still waiting for seismic upgrades.
Only four, Alpha Secondary, Montecito Elementary, Stride Avenue Elementary and Burnaby North Secondary, have been approved for funding so far.
The district has sent the province a "draft project identification report" for Alpha and a "draft seismic project identification report" for Montecito, according to a report to school board last week.
Draft project identification reports are also in progress for Burnaby North and Stride Avenue.
The ministry hasn't given final approval for any of the outstanding 15 projects.
When it does, Frank told the NOW in January, there will still be detailed design work and a tendering process to go through.
"We’re still quite a ways before a shovel hits the ground," he said, "but we need funding approval first."
In 2005, the province estimated all high-risk schools would be upgraded by 2020, but last month the education ministry said that timeline was being extended to 2030 for Vancouver schools and 2025 for others.
Asked if that timeline was realistic given the pace of the seismic projects thus far, Frank said: "These are complicated projects, so they take time."
