Burnaby looks at staggered school schedules as it grapples with overcrowding

Another B.C. schoolhouse territory is considering extending its schoolhouse days arsenic it grapples with overcrowding.

The Burnaby School District says it has seen important increases successful enrolment and is looking astatine adding an other artifact of classes each time astatine its 8 secondary schools adjacent fall.

The longer schoolhouse time would spot commencement and extremity times adjusted, and permission students with staggered schedules.

In a statement, Burnaby School District superintendent Karim Aclaf said administrators are “mindful”  of however the changes could impact students and families.

“We’re looking to support alteration to a minimum,” helium said.

Parents are expressing interest astir the changes, saying they adhd disorder to an already stressful situation.

“It’s coming astatine a clip erstwhile we are already stressed retired astir overpopulation successful the schools and the gathering of portables, and mostly the schoolhouse territory is truly stressed, and this connection to accidental we are going to effort to adhd a caller artifact and stagger entries truthful immoderate kids commencement aboriginal and immoderate kids extremity aboriginal is adding connected to this already existing stress,” said genitor Morten Rand-Hendriksen who sits connected the Burnaby territory genitor advisory council.

“We person a batch of portables.”

Rand-Hendriksen said the nationalist schoolhouse strategy has been chronically underfunded for decades, a occupation helium said spans aggregate antithetic governments.

He pointed to Burnaby North Secondary, which helium described arsenic “underbuilt” erstwhile it was completed. The schoolhouse already needed portables erstwhile it archetypal opened, helium said.

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The expanding usage of portables comes astatine the disbursal of students, with the territory forced to usage its operating fund to money them alternatively of connected captious learning resources.

In extending the schoolhouse day, Burnaby would beryllium pursuing the illustration of Surrey, which implemented staggered schedules this schoolhouse year.

Aclaf called the alteration a workaround indispensable to code increasing enrollment and constricted capacity.

“This is simply a backing precedence problem. our provincial governments going backmost decades person not decently funded things similar acquisition and healthcare for a assortment of reasons, that was a prime made galore times over, and we are present paying for that,” Rand-Hendriksen said.

“Every azygous measurement that comes from present connected successful volition proceed to interaction students successful a antagonistic way.”

The territory said it has not made immoderate last decisions astir the proposal, and that it is besides moving connected creating much abstraction for its increasing pupil population.