We have 2 children aged 6 and 4. We were lucky to win a spot at our catchment school for our older child, and my younger has sibling priority to join her without the stress of the lottery. We’re among the lucky ones.

In our building there are so many unlucky families. There are four other 4 year olds here who my daughter has grown up with and they are her community. All four lost the lottery to our catchment school and will be sent around the city wherever they can get a spot. The lack of space at our local school is breaking up my daughters community. Our home school could be much more than simply the closest one - it can enhance my daughters sense of belonging and community when she can share it with her neighbours and friends. What a shame

– Alex

I was born and raised in Vancouver. I grew up on the north shore, on a cul-de-sac. When I was a young girl, my friends and I, who lived in the neighbourhood, walked to school together. We played together, attended extracurricular classes together and we grew up together. Today, some 40 years later, some of us remain friends.

Today, I am mother, a single mother, of two. I work downtown. We chose to live in Olympic Village. Its a community of people, of families. Olympic Village continues to grow, high rise after high rise. Everything is here: restaurants, banks, grocery stores, a dry cleaners, barber, medical offices etc. etc., except a school.

Residing in Olympic Village, we have spent the last two years building relationships with our neighbours and within the community. My children have made friends with the other children in the community. They attend pre-school together, have play dates together and attend extracurricular classes together. For the parents, we all help each other. Trust me, I know, I became a single mom last year...it takes a village to raise children.

My son did not get into Simon Fraser Elementary, a school that oddly is more inconvenient than convenient due to it’s location and the current roadways. In fact, none of his “friends” won the Simon Fraser “lottery” (40 spots, 105 applicants, 13 spots for non-siblings). We were also not successful on 5 cross boundary applications. Yes, the maximum 5 were applied to with no luck.

My son will be attending Florence Nightingale. Thus far, we know no one attending this school.

The consequence: fracturing communities, fracturing relationships, commute and environmental concerns, childcare concerns, employment concerns (how flexible do employers have to be to accommodate people like me) etc. etc.

The solutions: Many.

This is no longer ok. The need is now!

– Monica

We live in Olympic Village and my boys attended preschool here and then when it came time to apply for kindergarten for our oldest it became so stressful. Some kids in our community got into the catchment school (Fraser) because of sibling priority and others got the luck of the draw. We were not so lucky. He didn’t get accepted and although friends tried to encourage us that the “list moves quickly” it wasn’t looking good. We had to quickly decide which other schools we would apply for. It was such a stressful decision, and it came down to schools that were closest.

Eventually he was accepted to Nightingale, which frankly, isn’t that much farther than Fraser. But then this year, our second child didn’t get into Fraser either but then didn’t get into Nightingale either. You can imagine how stressed out we were about that! Thankfully he has now been accepted, but we have a third child and being out of catchment we are not given any guarantees.

A school in the village really would go a long way in keeping families and communities together!

– Eva Maria

We moved to OV almost 6 years ago, right before having our first baby. We chose this neighborhood because the plans included a school in the near future. The years went by and nothing was built. Our two children attended Creekside Daycare. When we applied for our eldest to attend elementary school none of his daycare classmates were given a spot at our catchment school, including our child. We ended up being placed at General Wolfe, a good school but far from our home. The drive would take up to 20 minutes in one direction. Our eldest was offered a spot in March of this year and we took it because our younger child would get priority placement once she goes to elementary school. Drop-off and pickup is difficult enough at one school and near impossible at two different schools. The transition for our child was not easy and the school still requires us to drive at least 10 minutes daily. OV needs a school to accommodate the growing population of the area and it needs one now. The lengthy waitlists are just going to get longer and families cannot be expected to drive all over Vancouver. – Carolina

We were sent out of catchment to General Wolfe but it was too far. We ended up enrolling our now second grader in private school at considerable expense. Our youngest is school age in one more year. I spoke to the VSB on behalf of Olympic Village parents last year and also was interviewed for P. Bacchus news article about our story and struggles. I have had to take a break from this issue as it was too stressful on our family. – Kristie

My husband and I moved to the Olympic Village 4 years ago with our 1 year old. We came to this unique neighbourhood intentionally to build community, and were excited to hear rumours of space for a school to be built close by. We sold our vehicles when we moved into the city because we can walk and use transit almost anywhere we need to go, it makes living here more affordable, and we're in agreement with the Vancouver values of creating a green city. The Simon Fraser catchment would have been challenging enough to get to, but our daughter has been placed at General Wolfe, which is completely outside of where we do life. We've been rejected with each (closer) cross boundary school requests except for one in which we are far down on the list. We've made good friends in the Village over the years. Our now 3 and 5 year olds have made good friends in the Village. We don't know anyone going to the same school as her-no one. Every single one of her Creekside preschool friends are going to a completely different school in September because of the overflow situation. Without a car, I would spend over 2 hours total on the bus every day (with younger sibling in tow) just to get my daughter to the school bus at the current General Wolfe site that would then take her the rest of the way to the seismic upgrade site on Fraser and 41st. The realities of being able to stay connected to our current friends in the Village, being involved at her school, having time to go back to work, or building community life there outside of the classroom become very difficult. None of this feels desirable or sustainable for our family. If no other options become available to us soon, we will be moving this summer. – Amy

Girls age 6 and 3 years, and 5 months. My eldest attended SFE for kindergarten but moved up Laura Secord for French Immersion in Gr1. SFE is, first of all, beyond capacity so many children do not get in from the village and have to travel further afield (usually further away in opposite direction from parents jobs) to attend school outside our community. If Olympic Village residents are lucky enough to get in their catchment school it is still too far away and out of our community. Children should be able to walk or bike to their elementary school. The commute to SFE from Olympic Village involves crossing several very busy streets and walking or cycling up a steep hill through an industrial zone. It is a dangerous bike commute. Beyond all that - there are more than enough families living in OV to require building a school for our neighbourhood. Other than the cost of living - lack of schools is the largest problem for families moving out of Vancouver. – Jen

I moved to Olympic Village five years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. A reason I moved here is that I was told that an international school will be built just east of Cambie Street bridge. Obviously that never happened. I was unable to put my son in our catchment school we were 40th on the wait list and unable to get into any schools nearby. I decided to enrol him into private school to ensure a place before we heard back from VSB. And now we are considering moving as we've had a second child I don't know if we could afford to put both through the private school system. I really hope that something can be done about this as it's an urgent matter and every parent I run into in the village has suffered the same circumstances. – Sarah