WATCH: One year after opening, Royal Bay Secondary is expanding to accommodate more students this school year.The district is adding four portables and four more might go in the following year.
Royal Bay Secondary is weeks away from starting the school year, and crews are hard at work making sure the four new portables will be ready.
The high school opened last year at capacity and the portables are needed to accommodate 150 more students.
Vancouver Island Parent Conference Chair Stephanie Longstaff said the portables are no surprise.
“One factor the school district couldn’t really factor in was the popularity of a new building. They knew they had a lot of kids in the district, but a lot of kids probably came back with the new building,” she said.
The grounds in front of the school can accommodate eight portables, so four more could go in as needed.
Royal Bay was designed for expansion to allow for an additional 400 students, but first the Sooke School District needs a permit.
“They are applying to Ministry of Education to add-on and until that happens they’ll keep bringing portables in,” she said.
Housing construction around the school is in full swing, but it is difficult to tell how much impact that will have.
The Sooke School District expects to see 350 more students this year compared to last, and purposefully kept nine of thirteen portables at Dunsmuir Middle School.
“We are right at capacity for everything because they made us close all these schools a few years ago when we had a down swing happening.”
Longstaff’s ten kids already graduated high school, but she said portables are just as good as classrooms.
“It’s all about the person in front of the classroom and the culture of the whole school,” she said.
Royal Bay, Bear Mountain and Westhills are prime growth areas, and the Victoria School District is expected to reach 97 per cent capacity over the next five years.
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