Fire forces 274 students to attend another school
Carleton elementary school students and teachers will have to change schools after a fire damaged their school, but at least they can stay together, the Vancouver school board said Friday.
Carleton elementary’s main brick building was extensively damaged by fire on Aug. 19. Students and teachers will instead go to Cunningham elementary for the coming school year. It has enough space for Carleton’s 274 students and is about 1.8 kilometres away.
Mike Lombardi, Vancouver school trustee, said the fire and water damage also extended to the steam plant that also supplies heat to old wooden school building on the site, a 1910 building shuttered in June to save money and because the space was not needed.
Parents were hoping it could be reopened so students could stay at Carleton after the fire, but with no guarantee that heat, power and other safety services could be restored to that building, officials decided students would have to move. The students are expected to stay at Cunningham for the whole school year.
Adrian Dix, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway, said a couple of hundred parents, students and teachers came out Friday to rally to keep the Carleton community together. While they are happy the school board plan allows the students and teachers to move together, they hope they can move back to Carleton before the year is over.
They would also like to see bus transportation for the students, Dix said. “It’s a long way for any parent or grandparent walking their children to school,” he said.
The two schools will continue to operate separately inside Cunningham elementary, each with its own staff and principal, Lombardi said. There is adequate space at Cunningham and students will be able to attend the before-and-after-school care program that was in place at Carleton, VSB superintendent Scott Robinson said.
Carleton is one of 12 schools on a list of schools that could be closed at the end of the next school year. The board will decide in December whether any schools will close, after a consultation process and detailed reports are released this fall. Both Carleton and Cunningham need seismic upgrades, though Cunningham has a newer wing that doesn’t need upgrades.
It will be up to the province to decide whether or not Carleton will be repaired.
Dix said this week that the province’s insurance should cover the cost of fixing the school, as well as upgrading it against earthquakes.