Wednesday - Jan. 24, 2024 - How to build a school

🌧 High 7C

Good morning!

Yesterday we asked about incredible teachers you had (or your children had). We’ve had some great responses, but keep them coming. Just fill out this quick form. I’d love to hear both about teachers helping students today and those you remember from decades ago (those memories show just how long-lasting an impact can be). You can fill out this form here.

I do realize that memories can be a weird thing. I know, for instance, that I loved my Grade 2 and 3 teacher, Mrs. Smith. But I can remember very little from those grades except that I really liked my teacher. Which is probably normal, even with the best teachers. Humans are built to forget and move on, even as the impacts of those who they’ve met linger for much longer.

– Tyler

Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

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

🛣 Click here for 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

How to build a school
(and how one aspect may change)

New schools don’t (usually) pop together like Lego.

Any new school building, whether it’s a new school or an addition, takes years of planning and dialogue, with emails and phone calls bouncing between the school district and the ministry of education like a dodgeball off a fourth-grader’s face.

But while provincial funding inevitably lags years behind most Fraser Valley school district’s construction goals, new construction methods may hold some promise that new facilities will be built faster in the years to come.

On Monday, Grace wrote about surging enrolment in local schools (find that story below). Today, she writes about how schools get built. On Friday, we’ll cover the construction of one valley school that will be full to the brim the moment it opens.

Related

Need to Know

🔊 Langley Township pickleball players have called on the municipality to add courts [Langley Advance Times]

👉 Reporter Kim Bolan probes how an Abbotsford-raised man who once ran a restaurant in the city became a massive drug kingpin [Vancouver Sun]

🔎 The mother of a missing Chilliwack man is still hoping someone can help them solve the mystery of her son’s disappearance [Chilliwack Progress]

🌲 An Abbotsford woman participating in The Bachelor has survived another week by earning a rose on the reality show [Abby News]

🗳 Highway 1 in the Fraser Canyon closed overnight to allow for the removal of the one-lane temporary bridge that was installed on Jackass Mountain after the 2021 atmospheric rivers; the road was set to re-open 5am, with traffic now flowing in two directions over a permanent bridge [Ministry of Transportation/Twitter]

⚖ A man tied to two Langley fraudsters has been ordered to be extradited to the US to stand trail for a $35 million fraud [Langley Advance Times]

👉 Three Abbotsford sisters who have lost both their parents are raising money for two of them to represent Canada at an international street luge competition [Abbotsford News] / You can find the GoFundMe here 

🚄 Some are calling for buses and SkyTrain to be declared an essential service to minimize impacts from strikes [Vancouver Sun]

🥶 Residents of an Abbotsford apartment building have been without heat for a month [Global]

🚔 Police are seeking anyone who witnessed a deadly hit-and-run last week in Chilliwack [Chilliwack Progress]

🌈 Hope voted to fly the Pride flag in June [Hope Standard]; We’ll have more from the meeting in a coming edition.

⚠ The District of Kent has warned residents about an email scam suggesting some are overdue on payments [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

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The Agenda

Mission pauses field fee hike

Mission’s council has delayed the imposition of new field fees that sports groups said came as a surprise and had the potential to impact youth sports organizations.

Mission Sports Council president Dan Williams had written council last week, saying increased field use fees had been sprung on sports groups with no consultation and after many organizations had set their own registration fees.

That, Williams, wrote, left groups facing a financial crunch—and unable to discuss the consequences of higher costs with the city. (For more on the issue, see our Monday newsletter.)

On Monday, Mission council voted not to implement the new fees until the fall, rather than this spring. Councillors said that would allow the organizations to account for the increased costs in the fees charged to members.

Mission’s youth baseball organization had said that the new fees would take up 17% of its overall registration revenue.

Council said the delay would also allow for more discussions between staff and the groups.

🤝 Now hiring

• Part-time maintenance worker at Loblaws in Langley

• Public health nurse at Fraser Health in Abbotsford

• Branch operations manager at Industrial Plastics & Paints in Mission

• Harm reduction co-ordinator at Fraser Health in Chilliwack

• Farm supervisor at More Greens Corporation in Agassiz

Hiring in the Fraser Valley? Reply back and let us know!

📸 Current Cam

Each week we showcase a different photo from across the valley and invite readers to share their best guesses about where it was taken.

Think you know where this week’s Current Cam was taken? Fill out this form.

🗓 Things to do

Furtado at the Bez: Tony Furtado is joined by Grammy-winning mandolinist John Reischman and national fiddle champ Luke Price Jan. 28 at 7pm at Bez Arts Hub in Langley. Details online.

Mission storytime: Introduce kids to books with Mission Library's weekly storytime, every Tuesday from 10:30 to 11am. Details online.

Globetrotters: The Harlem Globetrotters play at the Abbotsford Centre on Jan. 25. Lots of tickets are still available online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

That’s it!

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