Skip to content

Throwback: Visiting Delta Secondary

The Ladner school has seen a lot of changes
delta-secondary-open-house-1968-delta-optimist-photo
Visitors at a Delta Secondary open house in 1968 checking out the industrial arts section.

It's been over a century of changes for high schools in Ladner.

Delta Secondary school had its genesis in King George V High School, which opened in 1912 with two rooms, located where the Ladner Community Centre now stands

Two more rooms were added in 1916. That first Delta high school closed in 1938 when its students moved to nearby Delta Central School, which later became Delta Secondary.

Delta Central was built in 1926 as an elementary school. The school was enlarged and updated for senior students while a new elementary school was built on the same property. A gym, now long gone, was also built, separating the two schools.

In 1952, the elementary become Delta Jr. Secondary, while the Central School building (B block) became known as Delta Sr. Secondary.

For years, the junior and senior high schools had students come from not only Ladner, but also Tsawwassen and North Delta.

In the 1960s, North Delta got its own high school, but Ladner would still get students from certain areas of North Delta until more high schools were added there. Tsawwassen got its own high school in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, the Ladner high schools, which had gone through a number of additions and alterations over the years, were amalgamated into one school, Delta Secondary.

In 1984, a new art wing physically joined the two school buildings and in 1990 Genesis Theatre was added.

Changes continued in the 1990s when B block was demolished, leaving the present-day structure on 51st Street with little resemblance to what used to stand there.