Parents at Vancouver's Crosstown Elementary renew call for better safety measures

CBC News

· Posted: Jun 22, 2025 10:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

A Vancouver genitor is renewing calls for amended information measures astatine an simple schoolhouse located adjacent the Downtown Eastside, aft a bid of concerning incidents involving radical carrying knives, cause use, and passed-out individuals adjacent the schoolyard.

Rebecca McNeil, whose eight-year-old girl attends Crosstown Elementary, said the problems are long-standing but person intensified.

"This twelvemonth it's really been a batch much visible," McNeil told CBC's On The Coast. "There was a truly scary incidental successful the autumn wherever we saw idiosyncratic connected the playground benignant of stalking backmost and distant with a weapon close arsenic schools were being fto out."

WATCH | Vancouver genitor alarmed implicit nationalist information incidents astatine Crosstown Elementary: 

The school sits adjacent to Andy Livingstone Park, and determination is no obstruction separating the 2 spaces.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) said it has responded to 42 calls for work successful the parkland truthful acold this year.

"That's a reasonably precocious number, but the bulk of those calls for work are low-level crimes," said VPD spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison. "We respond to cause usage successful the park, suspicious people, different transgression activity." 

Addison said that portion constabulary are taking steps to code transgression enactment successful the area, broader issues similar homelessness and intelligence wellness are extracurricular of the scope of instrumentality enforcement.

"No genitor should person to locomotion their kid to schoolhouse oregon fearfulness that their kid is going to travel crossed a concern wherever they consciousness unsafe," helium said.

McNeil said parents person repeatedly asked for a obstruction to abstracted the schoolhouse from the parkland and she is frustrated by the deficiency of progress.

"Every different schoolhouse successful the metropolis that I cognize of has a fence," she said.

In a connection to CBC News, the šxʷwəq̓ʷəθət Crosstown Elementary Parents Advisory Council (PAC) confirmed that information concerns are wide shared wrong the schoolhouse assemblage and person been raised repeatedly with nationalist officials.

The PAC said members person met with metropolis councillors and different representatives to stock their recommendations.

It went connected to accidental measures specified arsenic accrued signage, due fencing, and further enactment for unit during recess could assistance trim children's vulnerability to unsafe oregon inappropriate situations.

The radical outlined repeated incidents of unfastened cause use, off-leash dogs, coyote sightings, and the beingness of quality feces and cause paraphernalia connected schoolhouse grounds.

The PAC besides noted that children person fallen into a adjacent pond and that the schoolhouse has gone into lockdown aggregate times owed to outer threats.

"A deceased assemblage wasn't adjacent wholly tented disconnected successful the parkland earlier schoolhouse hours past period — children saw it connected their locomotion to school," the connection read.

The Vancouver School Board issued a connection saying the information and well-being of students, families and unit is simply a apical priority, and that they are moving intimately with different agencies to support a welcoming and supportive learning environment.

McNeil said that's not enough.

"There's much than 1 happening that needs to beryllium done, including amended protocols astir connection for parents truthful we tin navigate these things with our children," she said. "Seeing unfastened cause use, needles, adjacent deceased bodies…that's a spot much."

In 2019, parents voiced akin concerns aft a stabbing adjacent the school, which is located astatine 55 Expo Boulevard.

The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation oversees the adjacent Andy Livingstone Park.

Park Board commissioner Tom Digby said chap commissioner Scott Jensen had enactment successful a petition for the obstruction 2 years ago.

LISTEN | Vancouver Park Board weighs successful connected Crosstown Elementary mother's concerns: 

"The committee works with [City of Vancouver] engineering and they did corroborate 2 years agone that they had an volition to enactment the obstruction successful there," Digby said.

"I'm precise amazed that I'm adjacent sitting present contiguous due to the fact that we were fixed immoderate assurances...from unit that this obstruction was being actively installed."

In a connection to CBC News, the parkland committee confirmed discussions with the Vancouver School Board are ongoing and they would stock much accusation erstwhile available.

Digby suggested that caller information issues astatine Andy Livingstone Park whitethorn beryllium linked to a constabulary inaugural targeting street-level transgression downtown.

"There's much enactment downtown," helium said, referring to the VPD's Task Force Barrage aimed astatine addressing convulsive transgression successful the Downtown Eastside. "And that means that the unsheltered assemblage is going to beryllium moving [out of that area] in a wider and wider spread."

WATCH | Police respond to information concerns astatine Vancouver's Crosstown Elementary: 

Addison said the VPD has accrued enforcement to woody with transgression enactment successful surrounding neighbourhoods.

"We person a dedicated task unit and we're moving diligently successful the Crosstown neighbourhood with businesses and residents to woody with immoderate of the fallout that happens from the Downtown Eastside."

McNeil said her girl has had panic attacks and that children often deficiency the discourse to recognize what they're witnessing.

"I privation determination was much willingness from the schoolhouse committee and the parkland board," she said.