About ยท Candidate for SD61 trustee, Oak Bay (TEA 7)
I live in Oak Bay with my family. Both my children attend school here, just like I did growing up and my mother before me. My children are the fifth generation here, so suffice it to say I'm invested in this place. I haven't been everywhere in the world (yet), but I have yet to see a better place to raise children.
I finished school a long time ago. I never finished learning. A computer science degree led into twenty years in software, and the job has been the same the whole way: learn something new, figure out how it works, make it better. I don't expect that to change. The core of what I love doing is learning and solving problems, and I've done it at every size of organization, from Telus and Microsoft to startups of four people.
Today I'm a CTO, which in practice means I lead a team and we all learn and solve together. Most of my week is spent setting direction, deciding what to measure, and making sure people have what they need to do good work. That's the part of the job I'd bring to a board table. I don't believe in big bets you can't measure. Understand the problem, form a hypothesis, test it, correct course when the evidence says so, and be a little better every day. Hard problems eventually give way.
The strength of community is the greatest part of the school system here. Seeing a tight-knit collection of parents, educators, and volunteers collaborating across school events, sports teams, arts, and outdoor activities to give young people rich lives and set them up for the future is why I'm here. Aside from casual help at smaller events, I've served as a Scouter with the local Beavers and Cubs, and I'm looking to expand my community involvement through the school board.
Kids today are growing up through a period of real change. How they learn, how they spend their attention, and what the world will ask of them are all shifting at once, and there's concerning data that says it has taken a toll on learning. None of that is unique to us, and none of it is a reason for gloom. Children are resilient, and good schools have always been the place where they get the footing to handle whatever comes next. But it does mean this is a moment for school boards to be paying close attention.
Ours has been paying attention to other things. For several years the SD61 board has been absorbed by distraction unrelated to whether students were learning. Wedge issues took the oxygen, and the debate ran on platitudes instead of logic, systems thinking, and evidence. I find that frustrating at every level of politics. At the school board level it has a direct impact on what I care about most.
I'm an optimist, and I think this is fixable. I wish it were all more boring and sensible: a board that talks to people, looks at the data, sets targets, funds what works, and works calmly with the people running the schools. That isn't exciting, but it works. It's the kind of trustee I intend to be, and I'm hoping enough people want the same thing.