Victoria police were on Cook Street outside George Jay Elementary watching for speeders on Tuesday morning, but the focus was more on sending a message about slowing down than writing tickets.
Const. Terri Healy said traffic officers and Speed Watch volunteers plan to be at every school in Victoria and Esquimalt over the month of September.
Police were also issuing reminders about distracted driving, which is a factor in about 40 per cent of motor-vehicle incidents, Healy said.
She said drivers should put away earbuds and devices, and be aware of students heading to school on bikes, scooters and on foot outside of school zones, as well.
Fines for exceeding the 30 km/h speed limit in school zones, which is in effect on school days 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., start at $196 and rise sharply, depending on how fast a vehicle is going.
Tens of thousands of students in the capital region were in the classroom for at least part of the day on Tuesday, the first day of school.
Just down the road from the police, Katie and Doug McGuigan-Scott were taking nine-year-old Charlie and five-year-old Edie through the pedestrian-controlled crosswalk outside George Jay for their first day at school, where Charlie is in Grade 4 and Edie is entering kindergarten.
“They’re pretty excited to see all their friends,” Katie said. “It was a great summer, such a good summer.”
Christina Scutt was walking six-year-old Willow to Grade 1 at George Jay, which Scutt called an “awesome” school. “The staff is really attentive and made sure that we felt comfortable last year going into kindergarten.”
New this school year is a province-wide restriction on cellphone use in classrooms, although local school officials have said not much will change, since controls were already in place at most schools.
Also announced in late August was a policy to restrict protesters’ access to school grounds, a requirement that all students learn CPR before graduation and an expansion of school food programs.
At Victoria High School, final touches were being completed in the Wallace Auditorium, which wasn’t ready in April when the school reopened after an extensive, four-year expansion and renovation that required students to temporarily relocate to S.J. Willis Education Centre.
Grade 12 student El Gerard said he is looking forward to being in the first, full-year graduating class at Vic High’s long-time Fernwood location since the $100-million project was completed. “It’s a really cool thing,” he said.
Principal Aaron Parker said the 2025 grad class is expected to be a little over 200 students, up from 168 in 2024, while the Grade 9, 10 and 11 cohort is “busting at the seams right now.”
Combined with international students, the student total should reach or just exceed capacity at 1,000. The school’s former capacity was 800.
“The school community has been waiting a long time for this and they’re excited about being part of the history of Vic High,” Parker said.
Vic High, which turns 150 in 2026, is the oldest Canadian high school west of Winnipeg, dating back to a two-classroom log building that opened its doors in 1876 at what is now the site of Central Middle School.
El said the S.J. Willis location wasn’t bad but the new facility is much bigger and better. “It’s amazing,” he said. “There’s so many stairwells.”
Parker Reeve, also in Grade 12, said he expects Grade 9 students starting at the school will take a few days to get the lay of the land.
“I remember the first day I was here in April, I was texting a friend that I should use the compass app on my phone to get around,” he said with a smile.
He said he wants to do what he can during his last year of high school to “make it memorable.”
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