BY PRISCILLA OF THE GRAHAM BRUCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

On June 2, 2022, the Vancouver School Board sent a letter to parents of Graham Bruce Elementary School, located 3633 Tanner Street, advising that the City of Vancouver has granted preliminary approval to subdivide the school’s play field.

The Board held a private meeting on May 29, 2023 to approve the following motion:

“The Board of Education approve proceeding with the consultation process, as described in Policy 20: Disposal of Land and Improvements, to consider the potential declaration of the eastern portion of the Graham Bruce Community Elementary school site as surplus to the education needs of the school district.”
(Source: VSB School District letter dated June 2, 2023)

District staff are proposing to sell or long-term lease the eastern portion to generate “necessary capital revenue to address Board capital commitments and priorities that would benefit students in the VSB.”

Funds from the subdivision will not go to seismic upgrades for Bruce Elementary, even though the school building is rated as “very poor” according to the VSB’s own reports. The VSB has rated the school as H1, which means that it is the most vulnerable structure at highest risk of widespread damage or structural failure and seismic upgrades are required.

The Bruce Catchment is comprised of two schools. Graham Bruce is the larger school (the mother school) and the smaller school is the Collingwood Annex. Children who attend the Collingwood Annex usually attend Graham Bruce after Grade 3.

VSB’s data states that the enrollment at the Bruce catchment would decline. In fact, it has not.

Since 2016 a number of developments have occurred in the Bruce catchment. The Wall Centre Central Park Tower Project completed in 2017 with 1,054 new homes. The Westbank Tower Project at 5050 Joyce, completed in 2017, is now housing 256 new homes. In 2019, new expansion services were performed at the Joyce SkyTrain station, which makes the station bigger to host more people to commute to the area easily. A new development is currently underway across from the Westbank Tower project.

In addition, there are currently other smaller developments in the area, such as the ones on Vanness Avenue and McHardy Street and Vanness Avenue and Clive Avenue, underway. It is very clear that there are many more people and families in the area now.

Since 2016, Bruce’s enrollment did not decline. It actually grew from the developments in the area. The VSB’s projection of enrollment in the Bruce Catchment did not take into account the projected developments. The actual number of Bruce catchment enrollment is shown in the table below.

In the next 10 years, the City of Vancouver estimates that housing in the Renfrew-Collingwood area will further increase. There are nine more developments approved or pending approval to create over 1,600 new homes in the Joyce Colling wood area over the next five years.

The VSB’s decision to sell or permanently sub-lease the field at Bruce Elementary makes no sense. This last school year, there were 275 students enrolled at Bruce. In the 2023/2024 school year, it is estimated that enrollment at Bruce Elementary will exceed that number to over 280 students. One can predict that enrollment at this school will only go upwards.

This motion to potentially sub-divide the land at Bruce Elementary will only set a new precedent for all Vancouver schools. On April 11, 2023, at a Special Board meeting, the VSB voted to declare the Queen Elizabeth Annex, located in the Dunbar area, as “surplus” and closed the school for good despite their Parent Advisory Council’s petitions and argument to close the school.

The VSB will base their decision on the sub-division of Bruce Elementary, like the Queen Elizabeth Annex, on consultation and engagement with the stakeholders, the three host Nations, school communities in the vicinity of Bruce Elementary, as well as other civic agencies. The engagement process will begin in the fall of 2023 and it is to help inform the Board’s decision, which will be made at a public Board meeting later on in the year.

We need your help now to save the Graham Bruce school field

If you feel that the VSB’s private meeting held on May 29, 2023 and motion that was brought forward was without transparency to the community, we agree. The Parent Advisory Council at Bruce Elementary is acting on this now and we are informing the Joyce-Collingwood and Renfrew communities. This decision of the VSB’s will impact both communities, and more. The VSB needs to plan ahead and not redraw catchment lines. They need to be aware that selling school lands is not a future forward way of thinking in this ever-changing urban development world. Schools and local businesses are a necessity for the future.

VSB’s decision is mainly to aid in their capital commitments, not the people and the population at large. By developing more housing, we need more schools to educate future generations. We need schools, more specifically Graham Bruce Elementary, to be maintained and seismically upgraded in order to be in a position of educating future generations. If the VSB gets away with sub-dividing the land, the school itself will be next! We need Graham Bruce and Graham Bruce needs you!

Please visit our website at www.savebrucefield.com. Sign the petition, which can be found on the website. Come help us with our petition or volunteer to help us get the word out to the community and Vancouver at large.

Join us at the school field every Wednesday evening for a summer’s night with the community. We will also be hosting a movie night on August 25, 2023 with a live band! We will also be at Collingwood Days on July 22, 2023, so please come visit us at our booth.

We look forward to seeing you at our summer events. Bring a lawn chair, or mats and cold drinks.

Please be reminded that the VSB’s current and future actions could potentially affect many Vancouver communities, and not just the Renfrew/Joyce-Collingwood community.

If you wish to download the petition from our website, please return the signed petition to Mr. Adrian Dix’s office located at 5022 Joyce Street, Vancouver, BC.

We appreciate you and your support!