Safe schools mean safe classrooms for everyone in them

Violence in schools is measured, not imagined

WorkSafeBC has been clear enough that it convened a K-12 Workplace Violence Prevention Working Group, bringing together the BCTF, CUPE BC, the principals' and vice-principals' association, BCPSEA and the superintendents' association. It also published, with BCPSEA, a workplace violence prevention guidance manual for K-12 public education, because violence is a defined occupational health and safety hazard in schools.

The BCTF's recent member surveys name violence in schools directly as a concern, and tie it to chronic underfunding, the conditions that create harm rather than isolated bad days.

What does not exist publicly is an SD62-specific count of incidents or violence-related claims. I am not going to put a number on our district that I cannot source. I would rather commit to producing that number properly.

You cannot manage a safety problem you refuse to measure.

Crowded buildings make everything harder

SD62's 2023 Long Range Facilities Plan is blunt. District-wide utilization averages 112 per cent. About 11 per cent of students are taught in portables, one of the highest portable counts relative to enrolment in the province. Without new capital, utilization is projected to pass 120 per cent by 2027 and 130 per cent by 2032, needing more than 50 additional portables at an estimated present-value cost of roughly $20 million.

Anyone who has worked in a school knows what those numbers feel like on the ground: no quiet space to de-escalate a situation, hallways and lunch areas that are hard to supervise, shared rooms, and support staff crossing a parking lot in the rain to reach a portable. Crowding does not cause conflict on its own. It removes the room you need to handle it well.

The district has been building, Royal Bay's expansion, PEXSISEN Elementary, Centre Mountain Lellum Middle, SĆIȺNEW̱ SṮEȽIṮḴEȽ Elementary, prefabricated additions at Ruth King and David Cameron, and a new North Langford secondary school approved in October 2025 for roughly 2030. That work matters. It also has not caught up yet.

What I will push for

• An annual public safety report for SD62: incidents by type and by school level, staff injury claims, and what the district changed in response.
• Real support after an incident, consistent reporting that does not punish the person reporting, follow-up, and time and help for staff and students involved.
• Training in de-escalation and violence prevention that is funded and scheduled, not squeezed into a staff meeting.
• Relentless capital advocacy so classroom space, quiet space and supervision keep pace with the students we already have.

Safe is the floor, not the ceiling

Every student and every staff member deserves to feel safe, respected and supported. That is the first of my three priorities because nothing else in a school works without it. Learning does not happen in a room where somebody is braced for the next incident.

Vote day is Saturday, October 17, 2026. If safety in our schools is what worries you most, tell me what you are seeing. I will bring it to the table.