Pacific Way Elementary School (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

SCHOOL FUNDING OPTIONS

As wait times for new schools grow, SD73 to investigate prefab additions

Jun 20, 2025 | 5:02 PM

KAMLOOPS — The process of applying for, and then receiving, capital funding from the province of B.C. for new schools is painfully slow.

While the Kamloops-Thompson School District recently received funding for Snine Elementary, the list of needed capital improvements is only growing longer with the district requesting a new secondary school in Aberdeen, along with elementary schools throughout the community.

With wait times growing for new builds, SD73 will begin to investigate a potential alternative this summer — prefabricated additions on existing schools.

While it won’t replace the dire need for new schools in Kamloops, it could help eliminate portables and increase capacity in the district in the meantime.

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“We are seeing that the new schools are taking longer than we would like and this prefab option has come out from the ministry. And we think it is a way to potentially get new space quicker so we can remove some portables, get students out of portables and provide them with a better learning environment,” said Art McDonald, SD73 Director of Facilities.

This summer, investigations will begin at Pacific Way Elementary, chosen because of its location, capacity and its current low priority level for replacement.

“Even with the new school in 2026, some of those school will reach 120-to-130 per cent anyways — so we do need new schools. I don’t want to say we don’t. But in the interim, really, when you look at Pacific Way, we can try there. It has the infrastructure, as Director McDonald said. And then we can see when we have space pressures elsewhere and we can build quicker. Maybe that is a good solution,” said SD73 Superintendent Rhonda Nixon.

The prefab capital funding is a new initiative from the Ministry of Education which has seen good results for other districts. The additions also bring the schools back together under one roof, helping keep students connected to their peers.

“Parents really value the fact that someone is walking down the hall and they see other staff and they see other students, they see what is going on in the building — there are those informal hellos. And when you are in a portable you are isolated. You have your class, you walk outside, you get to the school and you eventually get that same connection, but this will be immediate and it will feel like they are part of the school,” said Nixon.

With advancements in prefab builds over the past number of years, the district is looking into the possibility of adding entire wings and even multi-story builds similar to what has been seen in Surrey and Vancouver.

“They did multi-story building. They did the wing… with multiple classrooms, and also being able to add the auxiliary spaces, including washrooms. And the other thing he mentioned when I talked to the superintendent was air conditioning. There is a lot that they learned and we can see the benefits compared to portables,” Nixon told CFJC News.

With investigations set for this summer, the district is hoping to submit their application next spring in their capital plan.

“We need to do some geotechnical investigation to understand the ground conditions because that will affect the costing and how much it will cost to build the building,” said McDonald. “And we need to do those things so when we put in our submission to the ministry, we are confident in those costs.”