Four-classroom modular addition to be built at North Van's Highlands Elementary

The prefabricated addition will add space for about 100 students

Four new classrooms will be added to North Vancouver’s Highlands Elementary school, providing space for 100 more students, the province has announced. Construction on the $6 million pre-fabricated addition is expected to begin this fall and be finished for the fall or winter of 2027. Enrollment at the school in the Edgemont / Delbrook neighbourhood was 466 in the last school year, which is 125 per cent of the school’s official capacity.

The addition will mark the first big change at the school, which opened in 2009. The province has recently mandated that most new capital construction projects be in the form of prefabricated builds. They have the same lifespan as traditional builds, according to the province, but can be built twice as fast and at much lower cost.

A similar $6-million four-classroom prefabricated addition to North Vancouver’s Westview Elementary opened in February of this year. Highlands wasn’t at the top of the school district’s wish list for school expansions. The school district’s first priority is still Lynnmour Elementary to accommodate 40 more kindergarten students and 200 more elementary students.

That project is estimated at $18 million. Other priorities for school expansions include a 400-student addition to Carson Graham Secondary at an estimated cost of $36.5 million, an addition to Queensbury Elementary to provide space for 40 kindergarten students and 150 elementary students at about $12.5 million, and an expansion of Larson Elementary to provide 20 additional kindergarten space and 100 elementary student spaces at an estimated $10.2 million. A $31-million expansion of Sutherland Secondary to accommodate 300 more students is also on the wish list.

The school district is also asking the province for money to eventually build two new elementary schools in North Vancouver. The first request – to build a new school in Lower Lonsdale – has been on the school wish list for a number of years. That project is currently estimated to come at a price tag of $46.4 million in construction costs and $80 million in land costs.

The school district also wants to build a new school in the Marine Drive / Capilano corridor at an estimated cost of $40 million. The cost of land acquisition for that school is ballparked at $20 million, which might be part of a larger building project, as opposed to a stand-alone piece of land, according to a district staff report. Requests for school expansions and new builds are based on enrollment pressures, Michael Chapman, director of facilities and planning, told school trustees at their last regular meeting of the school year June 18.

Replacement requests concern the condition of the schools, he said. Schools currently identified as needing replacement include Queensbury, Larson, Ross Road and Seymour Heights elementary schools. Sometimes schools in need of replacement because of their condition also have enrollment pressures, said Chapman.

In those cases, the province and the school district would conduct a review to determine if building an addition or replacing the whole school makes the most sense. According to a staff report, the number of elementary school students in the school district is expected to decline by about 280 students (or almost a 3 per cent drop) over the next 12 years, while the number of secondary students is expected to increase by 480 – a seven percent increase. Overall enrollment growth is anticipated at less than one per cent annually.

Most of the enrollment growth is expected to be within the City of North Vancouver, according to the report, while enrollment in the District of North Vancouver schools is expected to drop. Lynnmour Elementary is expected to face the biggest enrollment pressures over the next decade. Sutherland and Carson Graham secondary schools and Queensbury Elementary are also facing enrollment challenges.