Inside the evolving future of the long-delayed Olympic Village school

When Helen Lui and her husband moved to Olympic Village in 2016, they chose the neighbourhood for its easy walking and biking access. 

But as a family going back and forth about having a kid, Lui knew that their chosen lifestyle would require a school nearby — Olympic Village didn’t have a school yet, but one had been promised since the mid-2000s when the city was planning the new neighbourhood ahead of the 2010 Olympics. 

Now, nearly a decade after moving to the area, Lui has a six-month-old child, Charlie, but the elementary school has yet to be built. Last year, the province announced $150 million in funding for the project, which is now scheduled to open in 2030, according to the Vancouver School Board (VSB).   

“A lot of people have been waiting a really long time,” Lui told Vancity Lookout at a recent rally where about 100 parents, children, and elected officials gathered in support of the new school at the proposed site near Hinge Park. That point was punctuated by one precocious child in sunglasses who ran around the event chanting, “We want a school now!”

“The anxiety is very real. People are aware of the lack of [a] school,” Sarah Pawliuk, a parent of young kids and one of the rally organizers, told Vancity Lookout. 

For VSB Chair Victoria Jung, the long delay has been due to the competing priorities for the provincial government, which is responsible for funding schools. “They're prioritizing projects all over the province. Unfortunately, we were not at the top of the list until now. We need money, so we've been fighting for it,” Jung told Vancity Lookout, noting the school board’s gratitude for the $150 million from the province for the project.

The Olympic Village school had been a top priority in the VSB’s capital plan for over a decade, according to the school board. 

The long delay has meant kids living in Olympic Village need to be taken to other nearby elementary schools like False Creek and Simon Fraser, contributing to the broader issue of overcrowding in B.C. schools. 

For example, enrollment at the almost 70-year-old Simon Fraser Elementary in Mount Pleasant was nearly double the school’s operating capacity in 2024-2025 — far and away the most overcrowded elementary school in the city. False Creek Elementary was also overfilled last year, with enrollment at 117 per cent of the school’s capacity. 

However, school capacity in Vancouver isn’t a straightforward issue. Many other elementary schools in the city are under-enrolled, and the VSB is projecting its use of space district-wide will actually decrease from 83 per cent in 2021 to an estimated 76 per cent by 2031, according to a report from 2021.

At the same time, there’s serious pressure on schools in areas seeing rapid development and population growth — spots like downtown, Mount Pleasant, Kits, and around False Creek. 

The high demand for school spots in these neighbourhoods has led the VSB and the province to try to feed two birds with one seed by increasing the capacity at the newly-funded Olympic Village school, with an eye to serving families in False Creek and the surrounding areas. 

With provincial funding, the proposed capacity has increased to 630 students. The building’s proposed height has also increased, adding an extra storey and a rooftop playground and outdoor space. 

“The commitment by the Provincial Government to build an elementary school in Olympic Village provides a pathway to a long-term resolution to much of the enrolment challenges in this area of the city,” the VSB said in a May 2024 rezoning application for the site. A bigger building for more students triggered the rezoning, since the proposed building heights are beyond what the city initially envisioned in 2007 when the area’s original bylaws were passed.

The new proposal for the school isn’t “dramatically increasing in terms of the number of storeys or the footprint,” ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung told Vancity Lookout. Kirby-Yung, who will vote on the rezoning application when it comes to council, said building capacity in amenities like community centres and schools is a good thing. “You don't want to be under building [so] that things are immediately full,” Kirby-Yung said.

The rezoning has also reignited opposition from some neighbours, who say students coming from outside the neighbourhood will increase vehicle congestion, and point to increasing school capacity in other parts of Vancouver as a harbinger of decreased demand city-wide. 

Cathy Thornicroft and Mianna Dowling moved to Olympic Village in the past four years and are part of a group called Village Voices that’s organizing against the current plan for a bigger school that would serve additional students beyond Olympic Village. 

“Asking families from outside our catchment to come here doesn't make a lot of sense, given the way the village has been structured, and given the fact that there is excess capacity,” at other schools, Thornicroft told Vancity Lookout. 

In a recently released traffic assessment for the rezoning, the VSB estimated that around 400 of the 630 students would live within one kilometre of the school, mostly in Olympic Village and False Creek, with the rest coming from surrounding neighbourhoods. 

The school’s transit plan is heavily reliant on active transportation. It’s a very well-served area, with nearby bike paths and two SkyTrain stations. Walking to school is a big emphasis, given the close proximity of most of its presumed students. The transit plan projects 83 per cent of students will walk or bike, with 13 per cent (or 80 students) expected to be driven from out of catchment. The school plans also call for very minimal parking spots (six on the school site) and curbside drop-off and pick-up spots (six to 12). The plan doesn’t include estimates of how the 62 staff members will get to school.

“I think it's time we look at the future instead of the past. We have schools that have many, many, many parking spaces. This is not what this school is going to be,” VSB Chair Jung said.

The VSB also recently announced that they are negotiating an agreement for school-time access and upgrades to Hinge Park directly north of the school site. After calling for more outdoor space around the school, Thornicroft said she was “joyful” to see that being considered. “That access for children is excellent… We're not asking for sprawling fields,” she said. 

Thornicroft and Dowling emphasized they are in favour of the school, but want it to be smaller. Thornicroft, a retired educator and school administrator in Richmond and Delta, said that if the choice was between the 630-student school or no school at all she would take the bigger school. However, Thornicroft would rather see a smaller school in Olympic Village and have the VSB address overcrowding by spending some of the $150 million to construct modular buildings at other schools.  

In a statement to Vancity Lookout, the VSB said they “anticipate full use” of the approved funding for the Olympic Village school. 

“I think it's hard for people to see a lot of change happening around them,” Jung said. “I would really encourage people to look at the needs of the city above their own personal needs. [Right now] we are in desperate need of [Kindergarten] to [Grade] seven education in Olympic Village,” Jung added. 

Anthony Smith was one of the first full-time residents of Olympic Village when, in the summer of 2010, he moved into a building near Columbia Street and Walter Hardwick Avenue, right across the street from the proposed school site.  

Smith recalled his initial opposition to the school, which would have blocked his view of False Creek from his northwest-facing corner unit. “I was being quite selfish,” Smith reflected, saying he’d hoped the school wouldn’t be built. 

Around 2015, Smith had a change of heart after seeing a group of young mothers with their kids using Hinge Park. 

“​​I suddenly thought, if we don't have a school, these mothers will be driving around to different parts of Vancouver to take their kids to school,” Smith told Vancity Lookout. “The school is really part of the neighbourhood… what’s the big deal with seeing the water?”

The long delay has already pushed two generations of Olympic Village kids to other schools, leading to overcrowding and longer commutes. But there’s now hope that the next generation of kids, like Lui’s child Charlie, will get to attend a school close to home.