As kids across British Columbia head back to classes, students and parents in one Port Coquitlam community say they’re frustrated there’s no timeline for them to go back to their neighbourhood school.
Hazel Trembath Elementary was destroyed in a suspicious fire on Oct. 14 last year. Since then, about 250 students have been bused to the Winslow Centre, about 10 kilometres away.
Families gathered at the old school site Tuesday morning to demand clarity on the future of the school.
“It sucks,” Nicole Robles said.
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Robles said she and other parents are frustrated that there has been no announcement about a rebuild nearly a year after the fire.
“It’s tough, not being able to plan for the future,” she said.
“We have no choice but to send our kids to school on a noisy bus every morning unless we pick up and move to a new neighbourhood, and we don’t want to leave our community, the kids don’t want to leave their friends, their teachers. We just want our school back.”
Alaina Milicivic, who has kids going into Grade 2 and Grade 5, said she just wants to know whether her children will ever be able to return to the site.
“It’s been really rough. We didn’t sign up for this, we signed up to go to our neighbourhood school, to walk our kids to school to see their artwork in the window, to communicate with teachers at drop-off and pickup,” she said.
“Instead we put them on a bus and we wave goodbye every day.”
She said whether the plan is to rebuild the school or move kids to additions at other sites, parents need clarity.
“It would make it so much easier to know what’s to come and how long we have to do this,” she said.
B.C. Education Minister Rachna Singh said the government is still committed to rebuilding and working closely with the school district.
However, she said there was no specific timeline for the process to move forward.
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