Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Sea to Sky School District sees drop in Whistler elementary school enrolment

Parents point to lack of housing, superintendent says
news_whistler3-49ccce67e0a75d60
Spring Creek Community School saw a drop in enrolment this year, down 24 students over last year. School District 48 Superintendent Lisa McCullough attributes it to Whistler's housing challenges. Photo by Megan Lalonde

school district 48 (SD 48) elementary schools saw a considerable decline in enrolment this year—and it appears to be linked to Whistler's housing crisis.

"The kinds of things that principals have been reporting is families just saying, 'there is no housing,'" said Lisa McCullough, superintendent of SD48.

This year's enrollment at Myrtle Philip Community School is 324 students, down 21 students from last year. Spring Creek Community School has 321 students, down 24 from last year.

The decline comes after several years of increasing enrolment at both SD48 elementary schools.

During a planning meeting in March 2018, SD48 discussed several ways to accommodate its growing student body, including the construction of a brand-new middle school on a parcel of land above Myrtle Philip Community School.

McCullough said that the enrolment drop wasn't entirely out of the blue.

The district anticipated that growth trend would "counter itself" at some point, she said.

"This is a just a little sooner than we thought."

Despite the drop, the new school could still be on the table in the long-term future, she said. "To get a capital project of that nature takes years of demonstrating that the growth is going to continue and that there isn't a way to accommodate students in another way."

Jackie Dickinson, executive director of Whistle Community Services Society, said she learned of the decline in enrolment recently, but wasn't necessarily surprised by the news.

"I think it's a sign that it's becoming harder and more challenging for families to not only survive but thrive in our community," she said.

Significant actions are being taken to increase affordable housing opportunities, including enforcing illegal nightly rental regulations and stepping up building of Whistler Housing Authority (WHA) employee housing units, said Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) Councilor and the WHA Chair Jen Ford.

The new WHA employee rental housing builds include a 24-unit building at 1020 Legacy Way that will open to tenants in November, and a 20-unit building in Rainbow targeting Whistler seniors, slated to open in December. An additional 45-unit apartment building in Cheakamus Crossing is also under construction.

The RMOW and WHA are also in the process of reviewing the WHA rental and purchase waitlists, explaiend Ford.

As reported in Pique ("Municipality takes deep dive into Whistler Housing Authority purchase waitlist," Oct. 10), the results of the review of the WHA purchase waitlist were recently shared with RMOW council at an Oct. 8 Committee of the Whole meeting.

During a presentation to council, Toni Metcalf, the RMOW's economic development manager, explained that roughly two of every three applicants, or 532, are listed as either single or a couple without children or dependents, while 122 families have one child, 100 have two, and 15 have three.

The review found that there are numerous WHA employee-housing owners who are in larger homes who have indicated interest in moving into smaller ones.

"Nearly half of existing owners in three bedrooms or larger [units] have indicated that they would consider a smaller sized unit to downsize," said Metcalf.

"So, for example, a single person may be selecting a three-bedroom home, and if they're higher on the waitlist, they would have access to purchase that, where it may not be available for the next family on the waitlist to purchase."

In an email to Pique regarding, WHA general manager Marla Zucht said that while some of those existing WHA owners have selected units on their purchase waitlist application that are smaller than what they currently own, "these owners were not specifically asked if they want to sell their existing unit and 'downsize,' so some caution should be used in the interpretation of this data.

"Typically, applicants select multiple properties on their application for a diversity of reasons, such as location, price, project attributes and to keep their future housing options flexible."

Like parents, teachers are also feeling the housing crunch, adding an additional challenge for SD48.

Housing options are "unavailable and unaffordable" in Whistler and Pemberton, said McCullough.

"We know firsthand how critical [this issue is] because we struggle to help our staff housed."