Accountability starts with showing your work

What accountability looks like in practice

I have worked in education since 2004, including six years teaching in SD62. In all that time, the questions I hear most from parents are not complicated. Why did that program end? Who decided? Where did the money go? Those are fair questions, and a board that cannot answer them clearly has an accountability problem, not a communications problem.

On June 23, 2026, the board passed a balanced budget of $245,935,907 for the 2026-27 school year. Getting there involved administrative cuts, ending the early childhood educator pilot in Kindergarten, and drawing on reserves. The budget did not pass unanimously. Every one of those facts is public, and almost nobody I talk to knows any of them.

A decision nobody can explain is a decision nobody can hold you to.

The numbers families should be given, not have to hunt for

District enrolment was 13,785 students as of February 2026, and growth has slowed from as much as 4.5 per cent a year to about 1.7 per cent. That slowdown matters because provincial funding follows enrolment. When the growth curve flattens, the money flattens with it, while the buildings, buses and staffing obligations do not.

The 2026-27 budget process began with a $2.2 million overrun. The year before that, the district faced a $2.8 million shortfall. These are not scandals. They are the normal pressures of a growing district in an expensive region. But when they are only discussed in committee rooms, families experience the consequences without ever being told the cause.

Three commitments I will bring to the board table

None of these require new money. They require a decision to be open.

• A one-page, plain-language budget summary published alongside every budget vote: what went up, what went down, what was removed, and which students are affected.
• A published record of what was cut and the reason for it, so that when a program disappears, families can read the rationale instead of guessing at it.
• An annual, public report card on the board's own commitments, what we said we would do, and what actually happened.

Why this is the first thing I am running on

Reserves can be drawn down once. Trust, once it is gone, is much harder to rebuild. Parents, teachers and education assistants are willing to accept hard decisions when they understand them. What they will not accept, and should not have to, is finding out after the fact.

I am not running for a title. I am running because our kids only get one education, and the people paying for it deserve to see the work.