Southside school squeeze: A look back at Chilliwack School District over-capacity a decade ago
Eight of 11 schools were running at over capacity in 2016 with no clear solution in sight
This story originally appeared on page one of the Chilliwack Times on June 13, 2016. In 2017, the district purchase the land on which Stitó:s Lá:lém Totí:lt was built, opening in September 2022, with expansions at Vedder Elementary and more recently an expansion of Sardis Secondary – PJH, Oct. 5, 2026
By Paul J. Henderson
School overcrowding on the south side of Chilliwack is so bad the problem needs a tourniquet, yet the school board is left begging the provincial government for a band-aid.
At Promontory Heights Elementary the expected enrolment for September of 2016 is 591 students putting it 274 students over the building’s capacity of 317.
The school’s operating capacity as of Sept. 30, 2016 is 186 per cent, the highest in the district, but it’s just one of eight of the 11 elementary schools on the south side running over capacity.
There are currently approximately 80 children on a fluid waiting list to get into the school, and already dozens of kids are bused off the hill either to Vedder Elementary, which is at 131 per cent capacity, or to Watson Elementary, which is at 103 per cent.
“We desperately need a new school on the south side,” Chilliwack School District board chair Silvia Dyck told the Times this week.
“We are absolutely due for one.”
Minister of Education Mike Bernier was in Chilliwack last week as part of an ongoing tour of all school districts. After visiting Agassiz in the morning, Bernier went to Promontory Elementary with Dyck at which time the school board chair said the minister got a sense of the density and expanse of Promontory served by one small school.
But that doesn’t mean the province will pay for one.
Nothing new on the hill
Diane Pernitsky has lived on Promontory for 23 years – she says hers was the first home, other than farm houses, west of Promontory Road. With children at the time in school and foster children in the system to this day, she’s had her finger on the pulse of local education since the 1990s.
“We need a new school on the south side,” she said. “It’s pretty full up here in the kid department. We are bursting at the seams.”
With residential development on Promontory continuing – Mayor Sharon Gaetz said at the June 6 council meeting another 2,000 people could live up there at full build out – the need for a school is clear.
And some parents are exasperated.
Jaclyn Sterling said she lives in Promontory but her son is forced to go to Vedder elementary.
“It’s too much with all this development on the hill, we need another school,” she said. “What happens when they put in another 100-plus townhouses and the the other 50-plus they are already building,” Gabriella Spaner said in reference to a recent application that came to city council. “Where [are] all those kids going to go?”
Chelsea Ferraro said she bought on Promontory so her kids could go to the school there, but her daughter is forced to go to Watson elementary.
She drives her, although busing is provided. But for this the young girl would have to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop, get off at Vedder elementary and get on a different bus to go to Watson.
“There are still many kids ahead of her on the waitlist for Promontory and I registered her in August of last year,” Ferraro said.
Promontory school was built in 2000 and was immediately over capacity.
“It was built way under capacity,” Dyck said.
At that time, the school board had population projections the government of the day didn’t accept and, apparently, the government of today still don’t accept.
“Nobody believed us at that time,” Dyck said. “We’ll keep pushing the ministry.”
She added that in her brief meeting with Bernier last Thursday, he didn’t necessarily accept the school board’s projections that the city’s population of 87,000 today would be 97,000 by 2020.
“We were accurate then and we are accurate now,” she said. The Times found out about Bernier’s visit, which was not made public, and attended at Sardis secondary for the tour. After the visit with Principal Diego Testa there was a moment to ask a question about when a new school on or near Promontory could be expected.
“It’s a very unique district in a lot of different ways, with parts of it growing and parts of it not,” Bernier said. “We will be meeting with the school board later on today and discussing and talking about some of the challenges they are facing.”
Dyck said in the meeting, which lasted less than an hour, it was made clear there would be no money for a new school any time soon.
What Dyck and the board is pushing for strongly, instead, is the “band-aid” solution for Promontory of expansion on the building, something that was planned for when it was first built.
“We are trying to be proactive and ready and to let him know we can do this quickly,” she said.
But even if the provincial government does approve funding for Promontory’s expansion, the school would still be over-capacity, still with three portables down from the seven currently.
The 11 elementary schools on the south side of the district are sitting at 124 per cent of capacity as of Sept. 30, 2016, according to numbers provided by board staff.
The nine elementary schools on the north side are at 93 per cent with a large discrepancy between schools.
Cheam elementary is at 176 per cent, which is a function of the board’s location of the popular early French immersion program at the small school with a capacity of 111 students that has 195 enrolled.
McCammon elementary, on the other hand, is at 67 per cent capacity with just 289 students in a building capable of housing 429.
As for middle and secondary schools on the south side, Sardis is at 106 per cent, GW Graham is at 110 per cent, yet Vedder middle is at 89 per cent and Mount Slesse middle is at 84 per cent.
On the north side, Chilliwack middle is at 105 per cent, Chilliwack secondary is at 93 per cent and AD Rundle middle is at 67 per cent.
The district wide total has a capacity for 11,880 students with 12,207 enrolled for next year, putting it at 103 per cent capacity.
Click below to read the entire June 24, 2016 Chilliwack Times
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Paul J. Henderson
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