The Vancouver School Board is considering its options in light of a new report showing there are more than 10,000 empty spaces at elementary and secondary schools in the city.
Some schools have been especially hard hit by the demographic trend that has seen the children of boomers graduate from the system.
The Vancouver School Board is trying to decide what to do about declining enrolments in elementary and secondary schools.
(CBC)
At Britannia Secondary in East Vancouver, there are 400 empty spaces, while nearby Seymour Elementary is a little more than one-third full, says the report that will go to the board in April.
School board chair Ken Denike said there will be public consultations with parents this spring on possible solutions, which do not include any immediate school closures.
"We're not closing schools this year. A number of other districts are, but we're holding on, and we're going to look at the options."
Those options include leasing parts of the schools to everything from day cares to special needs programs as a way to pay for maintaining what is currently empty space.
"That space costs us quite a bit of money to operate every year, so if we were to look at reutilizing that space and make better use of it, maybe we could make some money," said Les King, the school district's facilities director.
The school board is dealing with a budget shortfall of nearly $10 million.
But it doesn't want to sell schools or land, as the enrolment decline is expected to level off in the next few years and officials don't want to find themselves having to buy land to build new schools in the future.
