The worn-out looking high school on the corner of Eighth Street and Eighth Avenue embodies a decade of disappointment in the school district for many people in New Westminster.

For almost 10 years, there has been a series of promises to replace the unsightly and outdated mid-century facility. It began in 2003, when the Ministry of Education approved a new high school, but construction was put on hold three years later when costs shot up. Then, in 2007, the province announced that plans could begin again to replace New Westminster Secondary School, but the latest attempt was delayed by the 2008 confirmation that the school had been built over an old cemetery. As a result, replacing the city's only public high school has become one of the most complicated and expensive school construction projects ever undertaken in the province.

The latest quest to get the high school built - it's now part of a three-school plan for a new elementary, middle and high school - seems on track again.

While the high school replacement has dominated the headlines and has long been a source of parental outrage, what's been somewhat overlooked over the last decade is the significant academic strides the New Westminster school district has made.

At the start of the decade, district educators developed SmartReading, an enhanced reading program. The program was crafted by retired assistant superintendent Susan Close, who came to the district in 1999, when provincial assessment results put New Westminster students at the bottom of the reading and writing barrel. But the district had such dramatic improvements by the fall of 2003 that then-education minister Christy Clark singled New Westminster out for its improving scores.

The district continued to offer a number of programs of choice, such as international baccalaureate, an accelerated academic program that helps prepare motivated students for post-secondary education. The district's IB students recently surpassed the world average in several subjects, including English, French and math.

Other popular programs - Montessori, French immersion, homelearners' - have thrived through the decade, raising the district's bottom line in academic performance and drawing students to the district.

But the district hasn't just focused on programs for advanced learners. It's also kept the doors open on its alternate schools, which help students who struggle to fit into mainstream classrooms and offer a learning environment that works for them.

Last June, trustees directed district staff to perform a review of programs of choice, which board chair Michael Ewen expects will take up to three years to complete.

Looking ahead to the next decade, the district is embracing the computer age and utilizing new learning programs. It is just beginning to see the academic benefit of Fast ForWord, learning software designed to help struggling readers improve brain fitness and strengthen brain processing. Another program that the district has implemented is Universal Design for Learning, an approach to teaching, learning and assessment that draws on new brain research and technology. One more sign of the times - registration is swelling in the district's online classes, which were introduced on a small scale in New Westminster more than a decade ago. The virtual classes really took off about three years ago when the New Westminster Teachers Union and the district partnered to enhance and expand the program by offering online classes to both adult learners and secondary students, assistant superintendent Al Balanuik told The Record.

But Ewen is concerned about the enrolment boom in online learning.

"I worry that it will be more people working in isolation," he said. "We know the best work comes by collaboration."

Even the often-divided board of education has benefited from collaboration, Ewen said.

Since the 2008 election, the board has been split, with Voice trustees Casey Cook, Lisa Graham and Jim Goring often at odds with union-endorsed trustees Lori Watt, Ewen and James Janzen, as well as independent trustee Brent Atkinson.

But political divisions and infighting are nothing new to the school board, and that's the reason some people feel that the aging high school has been forced to stand for such a long time.

Under the current plan, which has yet to be formally endorsed by the Ministry of Education, the district will get three new schools. The plan is to build an elementary school first on the former Saint Mary's Hospital site, then the middle school on the John Robson Elementary site and, lastly, the high school. According to the timeline, the high school - for students in grades 9 to 12 - would be completed in approximately 2016/17, which means almost another decade could pass before the new high school gets built.