Piers MacDonald for School Board

01

Focus on Student Outcomes

Canadian student performance has been declining for two decades. PISA 2025 recorded Canada's lowest results to date in mathematics, reading and science, even though Canadian students still sit above the OECD average. That has to be turned around, and turning it around means putting student achievement first.

Not wedge issues. Not broader political ambitions. Just a relentless focus on whether our kids are learning to read, write, reason, and do math, and on closing the gaps for the students who are falling behind.

• Literacy and numeracy as the district's measured, reported priorities
• Support and funding prioritized into classrooms, with fewer distractions from the board table
• Honest reporting on results, including where we are not succeeding

02

Technology: Fundamentals First, Screens Second

I have spent my career building software. I understand technology's potential, and I understand its dangers, because I have watched both up close. My view is that digital distraction is one real contributor to what has happened to learning over the past fifteen years. The evidence doesn't prove that phones alone caused the decline, but it is clear that they interfere with learning. The U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 advisory found adolescents spending more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms. The OECD's PISA 2022 results found 65% of students distracted by digital devices in math class, and those distracted in most lessons scored about three-quarters of a year behind their peers. PISA 2025 then recorded Canada's lowest results ever in math, reading and science. UNESCO's 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report documents the distraction evidence and the spread of school phone restrictions worldwide, while recognizing that technology has a place when it clearly supports learning. That is the standard I'd apply to every screen in a school: fundamentals first, and technology only where it earns its place.

British Columbia required every district to restrict phones starting in 2024. SD61's current policy keeps devices away all day at elementary and middle schools, but at secondary schools restricts them only during class time. That is a start. I want the same standard at every grade: entirely phone-free from the first bell to the last. And because the problem doesn't start at the school door, I want the district to help start a community covenant, in the spirit of Unplugged Canada and Wait Until 8th, where families in each school agree together to delay the age at which their children get a smartphone. No parent should have to be the only one saying no.

Artificial intelligence is a different matter, and I want to be clear about where I stand. I believe AI will be the most consequential technology of our lives, and I am genuinely optimistic about the good it will do in the world and its power as a tool for learning. But a tool for learning is only useful to someone who can tell when it is wrong. UNESCO's guidance on generative AI in education recommends a minimum age of 13 for classroom use. A small 2025 MIT Media Lab preprint, with 54 participants, found that people who leaned on ChatGPT to write essays showed weaker neural engagement and poorer recall than those who wrote unaided. It is early evidence, not a verdict, but it points the way I'd expect. Children need the fundamentals first: reading, writing, arithmetic, and the habit of checking their own work. In my professional role I build with AI every day. It has transformed my industry and will continue to do so in others. I want AI tools in the hands of our educators as the tools become valuable, to lighten their administrative load, and I want an extremely cautious, evidence-led approach to putting them in front of students, reserved for the senior grades.

• Phone-free schools, bell to bell, at every grade level
• A district-supported covenant for families to delay smartphones together
• AI tools for teachers now; student exposure only in senior grades, only with evidence

03

Stable Governance

My dad has a saying about driving. Get cut off once and that's just traffic. Get cut off at every intersection, all day, and it might be time to check your own mirrors.

Over the last two boards, SD61 has ended up at odds with nearly everyone: within the board itself, with the municipal police, with the Ministry, and most recently with the district's own senior leadership. I don't say that to dismiss what those trustees stood for. They won their seats based on sincere care for the well-being of our children and their right to an education. But good intent needs good action to make a difference, and that only happens when you are able to work with other people to help you carry it out. A board in constant conflict isn't showing conviction. It's failing at leadership.

That's why stable governance sits on this page alongside outcomes and budgets rather than beneath them. A board that governs calmly, debates openly, decides, and then respects the majority decision while carrying out its work is what makes every other goal possible.

• Less grandstanding, more quiet building
• A working relationship with the superintendent and district staff, with the willingness to disagree and commit
• Professional engagement with all stakeholders: Ministry, district staff, municipalities, parents and teachers

04

Data-Driven Decisions and Financial Prudence

Good intentions are not a strategy. The board should set clear goals, measure progress against them, and change course when the evidence says a program isn't working.

The same discipline applies to money. The board should be able to explain how every major expenditure supports student learning, and should review programs against their stated outcomes on a schedule. Spending that can't pass that test is money that could have reached a classroom. I will treat the district's budget as what it is: public money entrusted to us on behalf of students.

• Plain-language reporting of outcomes and spending, published on a schedule
• Program reviews that ask "did it work?" before asking "should we expand it?"