Surrey parents and students rally for education funding

Roughly two dozen people braved the rain in Surrey Saturday morning to voice their frustration with what they say is a lack of adequate provincial funding for education in B.C. (CTV News)

Roughly two dozen people braved the rain in Surrey Saturday morning to voice their frustration with what they say is a lack of adequate provincial funding for education in B.C.

“We are here because our kids in Surrey are suffering from the lack of fully funded education,” said Anne Whitmore, president of the Surrey School District Parent Advisory Council, which organized the protest.

Last week the DPAC, the Surrey Teachers Association and CUPE 728 launched a joint campaign for more funding, arguing that education is underfunded by $3.8 billion province-wide.

• Read more: Parents and teachers launch campaign for more funds

As the B.C.’s largest district and one of its fastest-growing, Surrey bears the brunt of that deficit.

“We have a compounded issue where, for a long time, schools were not being expanded, new schools were not being built, and Surrey was growing,” said Whitmore.

The district is famously home to more than 300 portable classrooms, an expense Whitmore said comes out of the annual operating budget, thus limiting the district’s ability to properly fund its educational programs.

When asked about school districts cutting staff and programs, B.C.’s Ministry of Education and Childcare typically points to increases in spending it has made since the 2016-17 school year – the last under the previous B.C. Liberal government.

B.C. will spend more than $8.2 billion in transfers to school districts in 2025-26, according to the ministry, with more than $1 billion of that total going to Surrey schools.

That’s a 50 per cent increase in provincial education funding since 2016-17, and the most the province has ever spent on education, but parents and children protesting in Surrey and around the province in recent weeks say the total is clearly not enough.

At Saturday’s rally, participants held signs reading “fund schools now” and chanted, “No more cuts. Kids need support.”

“We need a plan,” said Whitmore, when asked what message she wanted to send to the provincial government.

“We can’t keep pushing this problem down the road. Our society will pay at some point, either now or later.”