Monday - Jan. 22, 2024 - School growing pains

🌧 High 9C

Good morning!

My sister and I and an American friend of ours are trying to plan a trip this summer. We’re all big Anne of Green Gables fans, and we want to take our American to Prince Edward Island before she goes off to grad school in Kansas. Our plan is to fly in to Montreal and take a Via Rail train east. None of us have ever ridden a train in Canada, and, though I’ve heard some horror stories, I’m really looking forward to it. If all else fails and we get stuck in a train station in Middle Of Nowhere, N.S., it will make a good story.

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 See links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

School scramble: As students arrive in droves, school-construction can’t keep up

Whether it’s a desk next to the plastic skeleton or a spot on the alphabet carpet, space in the Fraser Valley’s schools could be in increasingly short supply in the coming years.

As the construction of thousands of homes have attracted new families to the region, the population of school-age kids has also increased at a rapid pace. 

Schools—particularly those in Langley, the centre of the most building—don’t necessarily have the space for the influx.

While new and expanded schools have been built in an attempt to meet current growth, neither the Langley School District nor the province have announced plans for new seats in neighbourhoods where populations are expected to boom. 

• Today, Grace takes a closer look at statistics that reveal the growing number of students in Langley, Chilliwack, and Abbotsford schools.

• Later this week, we’ll have two more stories: How schools get built (and funded) and a new plan new idea to speed up construction; and the Chilliwack school that demonstrates the valley’s school crunch.

Related

Need to Know

➡️ Man killed after being hit by a snowplow in Abbotsford is remembered as a great Dad and a “provider at heart” [Global News]

🍅 The Chilliwack Community Market will have room for more vendors in 2024 [Chiliwack Progress]

👩‍⚖️ Kwantlen First Nation factions are facing off in court over continuing leadership dispute [Langley Advance Times]

➡️ Mission Coun. Ken Herar will take a leave of absence to deal with his ongoing legal dispute with the city [Mission Record]

🥞 A Chilliwack non-profit that provides hot meals in schools has appointed a new executive director [Chilliwack Progress]

🚆 Translink is commissioning quarter-million-dollar public art pieces for each of its new SkyTrain stations in Surrey and Langley [Vancouver Sun]

💰 The final cost of Langley Township’s new reservoir is expected to top $25 million [Langley Advance Times]

🚔 A gangster was murdered in the underground parking lot of Abbotsford’s Sevenoaks mall [Vancouver Sun]

👉 Lytton residents will be able to access funding to help pay for archeology costs [Castanet]

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The Agenda

Mission sports groups say new field fees will affect kids

Mission sports groups are asking the city to reconsider recent hikes to sport field fees in the city.

In a letter to the city, Dan Williams, the president of the Mission Sports Council, says sports groups have been told that the city is hiking the cost to use sports fields and implementing new fees. He said those fees have been implemented without consultation and after many organizations had already set their own budgets and fees for the coming year.

Williams writes that new field usage fees will consume 17% of baseball registration fees and 12% of soccer fee revenue. Williams said that higher field costs will have to be passed on to youth sports users, deterring some parents from registering their kids.

“It is our understanding that in part, this decision was supported with the knowledge that some sports had ‘money in the bank,’” Williams writes. “This did not consider capital costs, preseason start-up costs, uniform replacement costs, equipment costs, and any other financial requirements that exist before registration begins, that the associations have to plan for.”

Williams is calling on the city should cancel the new fees and start discussions with sports groups. 

“We understand the City needs either more revenue or lower costs however, we strongly feel that doing so on the backs of Missions’ youth, is counterproductive,” he wrote. The letter is included in correspondence to be received by Mission council at its meeting today.

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🗓 Things to do

🏀 Basketball: The Harlem Globetrotters are coming to Abbotsford on Thursday, Jan. 25. Tickets online.

🏒 Hockey: The Vancouver Giants host the Victoria Royals Jan. 26 at the Langley Events Centre. Tickets online.

🥗 Meet new people: Omni Kitchen and Bar in Fort Langley is hosting a “Join the Table” event, where guests can join a table of six and meet new people over dinner on tonight, Jan. 22. Details online.

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Catch up

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