Elenore Sturko promises 25,000 new school spaces in B.C.

CentreBC leader Elenore Sturko said during a visit to Langley on Friday, Oct. 16, that her party would provide 25,000 more permanent spaces in B.C. public schools by 2031. Districts with the most portable classrooms and fastest growth would be targeted first. She also said class-size and class-composition limits in teachers’ contracts would remain and be fully funded.

Sturko promised to bring back letter grades for students in Grade 4 and up to give parents a clear picture of student progress. Her other pledges included adding 1,500 education assistants to B.C. classrooms, funding behaviour-support teams in every district, and hiring 350 child- and youth-care workers and behaviour specialists. She said school food programs would expand to reach 40 per cent of B.C. students by 2030. She also pledged more school counsellors and an expansion of early-reading screening-style programs to math.

Sturko said CentreBC could fund its education plan while returning the province’s books to balance. “Unlike the other parties, we actually have a path to balance in two terms,” she said, describing the incumbent NDP government’s deficit spending as a “payday loan.”

Four regional candidates joined her Friday: Kyle Stevenson in Langley-Walnut Grove, Parm Bhandol in Surrey North, Paul Brar in Surrey-Fleetwood and Sargy Chima in Surrey-Cloverdale. Langley and Surrey have seen rapid growth in young families and a disproportionate number of portable classrooms appear outside schools.

Asked whether she would continue the NDP policy of building modular school additions to replace portables, Sturko said she would. She said prefabricated and modular construction appeared in several parts of the CentreBC platform and would also apply to housing and other needed building types. NDP leader David Eby was in Langley on Thursday to rally campaign supporters. B.C. Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson visited a few weeks earlier and promised to cut the PST on Canadian liquor.