Site picked for new Brentwood-area elementary school

A new school could be on the way for Burnaby’s quickly growing Brentwood neighbourhood.

The city and the Burnaby School District announced Tuesday that they have identified a lot currently occupied by a park as the site for the new elementary school, which could be open by the 2027-28 school year.

The announcement describes the new school, which will be located at 4900 Dawson St., as necessary to alleviate the pressure of the growing population on existing schools in the area.

“The Burnaby School District is currently in the process of creating a new Long-Range Facility Plan, the overarching strategy from which capital funding requests are made to the Ministry of Education and Child Care for projects such as school construction,” the announcement said.

“Now that the critical first step of having identified a site is complete, the school district is in a position to work through the necessary steps to secure the site and request that the Ministry advance the District’s formal request for funding to build the new school.”

The district says the school’s attendance area is already home to more than 400 elementary students as of the start of this school year—and says the location of the new school will also prevent students from having to cross busy roads to get to the current schools on the north side of Lougheed Highway.

“Brentwood is one of the fastest growing neighbourhoods in Burnaby and has earned a reputation as a dynamic and convenient place to raise a family,” Mayor Mike Hurley said in a statement.

“By working with our partners at the Burnaby School District to identify a site for a future school, we’re taking another step towards ensuring families in Brentwood can access everything they need within a 15-minute walk.”

The 2021 census showed that Burnaby is one of the fastest growing municipalities in the country, with 16,370 new residents moving to the city between 2016 and 2021.

Brentwood Town Centre outpaced other areas of Burnaby by far, showing a 73% growth in population during that time—”the result largely of recent tower development, while many lower density neighbourhoods experienced little to no growth, or a slight decline in population,” as a council report early last year noted. The entire northwest quadrant of the city saw a population growth of about 15%.

The city expects the population of Burnaby to grow another 16% by 2030.

The school district has said for several years that additional schools will be—and are already—needed to keep up with Burnaby’s growing population.

A report on the challenges facing the Brentwood North Zone notes that many elementary and secondary schools in the area are already at or over their current capacity—particularly at Brentwood Park, which is at 126% capacity for the 2022-23 school year.

Last year, the Burnaby Now reported that the school district was exploring the possibility of adding “tower schools” to highrises in Burnaby’s town centres, due to a scarcity of land for new schools.