Cumberland Community School will get a 16-classroom addition to accommodate an increasing number of students in the area.
The addition will be built with $31 million from the province and $200,000 from the Comox Valley School District, and is expected to be complete in summer 2027.
Michelle Waite, chairperson of the Comox Valley School Board, called the expansion a “significant milestone for the community” and noted that the school has been seeing rapid enrolment growth. The school has about 700 students and was more than 100 per cent over-capacity last September — and has had a 28 per cent growth rate over the course of the past two years.
The project will add 345 new seats to the kindergarten-Grade 9 school while replacing an annex building and portables currently at the site.
It will also include a neighbourhood-learning centre, complete with a community kitchen. The school is already home to the Cumberland Community Schools Society, which runs a lunch program, after-school programs, a youth centre and adult classes.
The school “is a real hub,” said school district spokesperson Craig Sorochan, and its current food services will be enhanced by the kitchen being added.
“It has lots of events and activities taking place evenings and weekends,” he said.
Cumberland Mayor Vickey Brown said the local population was 4,447 at the time of the 2021 census, and has been growing by about 18 per cent annually in recent years, with a lot of young families moving in.
“That’s been challenging, like every other community that’s growing at this pace, and our school obviously is in the middle of that,” Brown said. “We only have the one school.”
Sorochan said the overall population growth in the Comox Valley has caused pressure on other schools, as well, pointing to $16.5 million in funding announced last week for a prefabricated addition with 11 classrooms at Aspen Park Elementary in Comox.
“With all these classrooms coming it’s going to actually allow us to spend quite a bit more money on our student programming versus having to pay for portables,” Sorochan said. “So we’re very happy about that.”
The Comox Valley School District has seen over $85 million in provincial funding over the past six years for new and upgraded schools.
