FAQ
Straight answers to the questions I was asked most during the campaign.
In line with the privacy policy, all question and volunteer submissions were deleted after the election. Thank you to everyone who submitted one.
Email [email protected].
Not from anyone else. There is too much money in politics already, and a school board race shouldn't need it. I'm covering the campaign's own costs. If you want to give, give to the Parent Advisory Council at your nearest school and tell them I sent you.
No. I'm running as an independent. No party, no slate, no endorsements from elector organizations, and no contributions from anyone else. If that ever changes you'll read it here first.
Phones and smartwatches away from the first bell to the last, at every grade, with the same accommodations the current policy already makes for medical and accessibility needs.
SD61 already restricts personal devices throughout the school day at elementary and middle schools. At secondary schools, devices are restricted during instructional time but may be used outside it, and teachers can authorize instructional use. My proposal differs in two ways: the same bell-to-bell standard at secondary schools, and a clear district-wide rule so no individual teacher or school has to be the enforcer.
Because I know how these tools work. I'm optimistic about AI. I use it daily and have built AI models, tools, and features. It's incredibly exciting technology, it has a place, and I want it in educators' hands now to cut paperwork. But a student who can't yet write a paragraph or check an arithmetic answer has no way to tell when an AI is wrong, and without that it just helps you make mistakes faster. Fundamentals first, AI later, and only with evidence that it helps.
This debate has borrowed most of its heat from American politics, and our situation doesn't look like theirs. Community policing is a sensible way for students to get comfortable with police and for police to help establish schools as safe places for everyone. That is my view, and here is what the surveys actually show. When SD61 surveyed the community in 2021, only 5% of the 3,815 respondents said their interactions with police liaison officers had been negative or very negative, and only 15% wanted the program to end. Those are measures of opinion and experience, not proof of outcomes, and 2021 was a low point for police sentiment generally. Vancouver's experience since suggests support has grown rather than faded: the 2025 evaluation of its reinstated program found 63% of students and 74% of staff support having an officer in their school, and the share of students who felt officers did not contribute to safety fell from 20% in 2021 to 7% in 2025. I'd expect Victoria to look similar.
That said, police are usually the largest line item in a municipal budget. I'd rather see public money go to public health, arts, and recreation than to the consequences of crime and addiction. No organization asks for less. Tax dollars are finite, and we should expect value from every public service, this one included.
So in short: I support the police liaison program, but I insist it produce tangible results for the schools and the surrounding community alike.
As asked
Thanks for running and for taking the time to provide a website. You mention you want to be part of a board that "takes technology seriously", so what would you do as a SD61 board member to reverse the historic trend in SD61 of duplicating provincial investments and efforts in technology, and reinventing the wheel, rather than leveraging the tools available and therefore critical budget $s for other purposes? For example, refusing to adopt MyEducationBC fully and the parent portal, which is available free to the district and used by many others to support parent engagement and information sharing, and using school cash online with a cost impact.
I've spent my career building software and I love doing it. Even so, some of the most valuable advice I've given organizations considering a software project is: don't. It's very tempting to build something bespoke when there's pain with the existing solution and there are lots of folks eager to take money to build it.
It's not much different than doing a kitchen reno because you don't like the location of your dishwasher: you're probably better off finding a workaround. That's not always the case, but unless it's an investment that's going to serve as infrastructure and pay back in the form of revenue, time savings or cost savings, I'd be suspicious.
Every dollar spent hosting, patching, securing and supporting software comes from the same pot that pays for classrooms. So that spend shouldn't be made lightly. You can absolutely count on me to push hard on that type of spend, doubly so because I know what it takes. None of this is glamorous, and it will not make headlines. But a board that takes technology seriously spends less on it, not more.
Full disclosure: I'm not familiar with the process behind the Parent Connect versus MyEducationBC decision, so treat this as my operating principle rather than a verdict. A verdict on that specific case would require understanding the details, and that is something I'd commit to doing.
Yes, take a peek at my full reasoning in another question above.
I'll also be candid. This issue has consumed an enormous share of the board's attention over the past few years, and it has very little to do with whether kids are learning to read and do math. If SPLOs are the deciding question for you, I'm probably not your candidate. Even if you agree with me, I'll gladly take the vote, but this isn't an issue I'm married to. My focus is schools and student outcomes, and I intend to keep it there.
Great question. The same way I assessed for my current support is what I would continue to do: measure and listen.
The program is for students, and the claims made for it are testable:
Then weigh it against cost. The officers are on VicPD's payroll, not the district's, so the direct cost to classrooms is small. The real cost is student and staff time, and the board's attention.
Vancouver evaluated its reinstated program in 2025 with surveys of students, staff, and parents by school. SD61 should do the same, on a fixed schedule, and the board should review it in public. If the numbers show it isn't working for the students it's meant to serve, change it. If they show it is, stop relitigating it.
Students with disabilities are where my "students first" and "evidence-based decision making" principles meet. SD61's own 2025 Enhancing Student Learning Report shows students with designations rarely reach the same levels as other students. The one exception is feeling that two or more adults at school care about them, where they match their peers. The largest gaps are in literacy and numeracy, where they score 10 to 20 percentage points below the district average. When I talk about closing gaps for students, this is one of them.
Inclusion only works if it's resourced. A student with a designation placed in a classroom without the support they need hasn't been included. Given the size of the gap, there's real room for improvement.
No judgement on the question, it's a common topic and fair game. However let me be clear up front: I have zero tolerance for bigotry, in our schools or in the debate about them. Every child deserves to feel welcome, seen, and appreciated at school. Period.
As far as SOGI specifically goes, I think it's an overblown controversy that takes oxygen away from more pertinent topics. It's mostly innocuous stuff. Seriously, you can read through it online here. There are only 24 English lesson plans, and the 17 that list a time add up to about 16½ hours of possible instruction. As it's optional for teacher to use, in the unlikely event a child did all of it we're talking roughly three and a half school days spread over 13 years, or about 0.14% of the 11,759 hours of instruction BC requires from kindergarten to Grade 12. Diggin in, a decent portion of it is pretty tame, like a lesson on not calling people names. So I'm not seeing the big deal.
That said, if poke around, there are sincere criticisms that I think have merit. For example, one lesson plan suggests introducing pronouns to kindergartners. I'd let that one wait at least until they can read. This is the kind of valid feedback I think the district should gather and direct back.
Keep them, and stop putting them on the chopping block every spring.
Music and arts aren't extras. For a lot of students they're the reason they show up. Students on the South Island who feel part of their school skip class far less (26% vs 42%) and are much more likely to plan on post-secondary (81% vs 63%), according to the BC Adolescent Health Survey. Band, choir, art and drama are some of the most reliable ways a school builds that connection, especially for kids who aren't on a sports team.
The trend in SD61 is going the wrong way. Music spending went from $1.57M in 2020-21 to $1.41M in 2026-27, while the overall budget grew by about $57M. Music's share of the budget fell from 0.75% to 0.53%. The program has been cut or threatened in five of the last six budget cycles, and this year's restoration relied on one-time money, so the same fight is likely next spring. At this point, it almost feels like manufactured conflict. We know the importance of it. We know the passion the community has behind music, and that every time it comes up, it's going to raise attention. Let's just find a way to fix it for good.
The money is there if the board budgets accurately. Actual results beat the budget by $3.5M, $7.6M and $4.4M over the last three years, yet a $1.4M program keeps getting cut. I'd also look hard at technology and outside legal spending before cutting any program students rely on.
My data here is strongest on music. I'd apply the same standard to visual arts and drama: protect what keeps students engaged, and fund it from ongoing money, not one-time fixes.