After setting this year’s priorities to lobby the province for funding on new and expanded schools the Kamloops Thompson School District is already working on future capital priorities.

School Board Chair Kathleen Karpuk says they are working with the city to find plots of land to build future schools on.

“This is something that we have been in conversation with the city on for a while. Because we have moved from a period of declining enrollment to flipping the switch almost overnight and going to increased enrollment and in new areas of the city where we don’t have schools. This has definitely upped the pressure for us. It means that we have been having a lot more conversations with the city about this.”

Karpuk says city data shows populations pressures continuing to build in certain neighbourhoods with Aberdeen and Juniper leading the way.

“Based on the Kamloops official community plan we really saw where the city is forecasting growth and what kind of growth. What they have told us is that there is going to be a lot of single family residences put up in Juniper. There is going to be a tonne of them in upper in Aberdeen. Those then become much more higher priorities for us that we will be looking at those areas to find somewhere where we could potentially put schools.”

She says once the school sites are found they will become future capital funding asks to the province for the funding for actual construction.

The district maintains an annual list of capital priorities everything from new schools to new school buses needing provincial funding to complete.

This year they are asking the province for new schools in Pineview Valley and in Sun Peaks, an expansion of Westmount, and the replacement of South Kamloops Secondary.