ACT TO END SEWAGE CRISIS AT HUBAND SCHOOL 

Janice Caton, Board Chair
School Board of District 71

Ronna-Rae Leonard
MLA for Courtenay-Comox 

Huband school has reached a crisis point. Students are reporting stress and anxiety. Our education resources are being wasted on a sewage system needing daily repair instead of invested in a proper repair solution. 

The last School District Buildings Report was in 2012. It projected Huband under capacity, with only 318 students in 2021. This was appallingly wrong.

Huband now has 404 students. That’s already 30% over the 2012 report projections for 2019. Huband now 20% over capacity according to the report’s own numbers.

That will double in the next 5 years according to the school board's own numbers, which are already shown to have under-estimated growth numbers.

In the face of these estimates simply rearranging catchments isn’t going to cut it. The students per square foot at Huband is one of the worst in the valley as of now.

You can feel it in the halls. You can see it on the teacher’s faces. You can smell it in the washrooms. They are paying for District inaction. 

There was no reason for this. The Lower Mainland and Greater Victoria affordability crisis in BC has saturated the news for years. It should come as no surprise to school leadership that more and more families are moving here. 

Huband families and teachers need real change now.

This is a crisis, and a crisis demands action. The NDP ran on a commitment to families and education. This is an opportunity to show that commitment. 

We hereby call on Janice Caton and Ronna-Rae Leonard to intervene on behalf of our families and students and act immediately to restore a safe and healthy environment at Huband.