Primary Sources
The records behind the story, assembled and cited, published Wednesdays. No argument and no byline voice: each entry sets out what the documents say, names the document and the date behind every field, and leaves the open questions open. Where the record is incomplete or two sources disagree, that is stated rather than resolved.
9 entries
Published inputs, an unpublished model, and one number
A closure decision rested on a projection of 1,010 students at three schools in 2039. The three input series behind that figure are named in public.
One lease, one subsurface sale, ten years
Over the ten years to 2026 a Vancouver school district completed one long-term lease and one subsurface sale, and sold no whole school site. Two sites left the enrolling inventory, both by closure, and neither has been disposed of.
Two instruments, and neither moved a whole site
Vancouver’s school district completed two land instruments in the decade to 2026. One sold the parcel beneath a school and kept the surface. One leased part of a site for 99 years and kept the title.
Six land files, two completed instruments
Across 2016 to 2026 the Vancouver School Board completed two land instruments, one long-term lease and one subsurface sale, and no outright sale of a whole site.
Two published prices for one standing building
Two dollar figures stand in the public record for the vacant buildings at 3250 Kingsway: roughly $65,000 a year to hold them, and $8 million to $10 million to repair them.
Eight years past the published horizon
A closure decision was tested against enrolment projections running to 2039. The district's published long-range facilities plan runs to 2031.
A site let go, and bought back thirty-five years later
Richmond let a closed school site go in 1990 at a valuation of $5.67 million. In 2025 the same district paid $60 million to buy it back. Both figures are public, and neither file contains the other.
One school, three capacity numbers, one page
Renfrew Elementary appears in the district’s capital plan with three capacity figures and one enrolment. Every one of them is correct. Which capacity governs a $51.8 million request is nowhere stated.
The Villages Plan Did Not Pass. The Coordination Gap Did.
One city, three timelines. Downtown shows what happens after school pressure arrives. Rupert and Renfrew shows the pressure forming. Carleton shows what disappears when a public option is removed before the future is reconciled.