Students, parents and the B.C. Conservatives are calling for the province to step in
The B.C. Conservatives are urging the province to save the South Surrey/White Rock Learning Centre, which is to close in June if money isn’t found to renew its lease, saying lives could be at risk if the centre closes.
The learning centre helps vulnerable youth struggling in mainstream schools by providing “flexible and individualized” programming for students in grades 10 to 12 along with counselling and social work services.
It also has a program that gives students a chance to volunteer in a field they are interested in working in.
Local Conservative MLA Trevor Halford says he has met with a number of students who said they wouldn’t be where they are today without the centre.
“This is coming down to dollars and cents, and at the end of the day, it rests on the government of B.C. to make sure that these students are receiving the proper education that they deserve,” said Halford.
The Surrey school district says the decision to not renew the lease came down to budget constraints. The district is the fastest-growing in the province and there was simply not enough money to pay for the new lease and the renovations and repairs the district says the building needs.
It says students will re-join the regular school system but will be provided with supports such as smaller classrooms. Staff will be reassigned to where they are most needed.
“The amount of money that we get every year from the provincial government has not kept pace with our expenses, and so things like inflation, dealing with the growth of the district, portables, are an issue,” said the chair of the Surrey school board, Gary Tymoschuk.
“We just felt that this was an opportunity to save some money, and yet we will still be able to manage those kids quite well in the existing schools in the south.”
The Ministry of Education said in a statement that there are no plans to bail out the centre as individual school districts are responsible for making funding decisions.
Hilly Schaeffer, who graduated in 2020, and Desmond Tompkins, who graduated in 2021, said the school gave them a safe place to learn at their own pace.
For Schaeffer, the school was a reprieve from the inconsistency of foster care. She missed almost two years of school because of constant moves from one group home to another.
She says she started at the Guildford Learning Centre, which permanently closed in November, before moving to the South Surrey location.
“It gave me the opportunity to catch up, and I actually graduated on time, even though I had an extra two years of school to complete on top of the two years of school that I still had left,” said Schaeffer.
Tompkins said the centre gave him a place to be himself after being bullied at his previous school for being queer.
He said he feels for students who might not have the opportunities he got and knows many might drop out and never return to school.
“They encouraged me to pursue my passions. I got to work on a lot of passion projects while I was there, like I ran a school-wide art show for my senior year. I was able to attend a journalism workshop with CBC, and I got all these opportunities to express myself that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” said Tompkins.
He said that regardless of the cost to keep the centre open, it will cost the government and school district less in the long term because it helps students succeed and keeps them from ending up in the judicial system or from becoming reliant on employment insurance and mental health care.
Keith Chalmers, whose daughter is to graduate from the centre this year, is worried some students will resort to taking their own lives if they aren’t able to access additional supports.
He said his daughter, who struggles with social anxiety and ADHD, has thrived since moving to the school in September and is now considering going to university after coming close to dropping out in Grade 11.
“She’s feeling good about herself,” said Chalmers. “She’s now looking at taking Calculus 12. She couldn’t even do the basic math in grade 10 and 11.”