Community service and improving the student experience, whether for academics or extracurricular activities, are cornerstone values of mine. I have had the pleasure of volunteering with students of all ages, starting from when I was in junior high working with elementary school-aged refugee students. After moving to Edmonton for university, I was actively involved with the U of A student community, first in my residence and later with the Students' Union, serving as the Vice President Student Life. After graduating from the Faculty of Engineering, I have also been lucky enough to run a tutoring program for students of all ages and backgrounds, and work with multiple post-secondary student organizations and clubs. I currently work at ATCO as a Professional Engineer and I’m also the sitting Trustee for Ward G.
I’m running for a few different reasons:
1. We need to push back against the current government’s campaign against public education.
2. I am a father of two children, one of whom will be entering the public school system next year. Although being a parent isn’t a prerequisite, I have a vested interest in the future of our public school system.
3. The board needs strong representation to represent the diversity of our city.
Statement of beliefs
The goal of education should be to nurture each student to achieve their full potential, regardless of race, gender identity, cognitive ability, or other factors. As such, the education system needs to be equitable for each student, and provide a holistic view of our local, national, and global communities and engage each student to positively impact the greater community.
Education needs to include themes of empathy, compassion, and understanding, all of which are in desperate need in our society today. Education should promote and foster positive physical and mental health for each student. Finally, education should prepare all students for the ever-changing world that they will face upon graduation, not only to pursue successful careers, but also to be able to adapt and overcome challenges that we can’t yet recognize.
Priority areas
Equitable per-student base funding and support for increasing complexity in the classroom
Preserving safe & high-quality learning for all students i.e. new curriculum and equity for students
More 21st century learning spaces for students to address increasing demand and class sizes
Views on funding
The threshold of appropriate investment in our students is not being met. Alberta provides the lowest per-student funding of any province. Public dollars should go to public education. The new funding model is an improvement, but still leaves some students behind, does not account for changes after the count date, and also looks backwards in terms of funding for teaching staff. Crucial programs like PUF have been diminished, which means less early interventions and less support for students with disabilities. Infrastructure funding is lagging in both deferred maintenance to maintain our facilities and new schools to add capacity to the system. The level of funding should reflect the high value that we place on student investment. As a Trustee, my role is to advocate for additional funding from the provincial government, work with third-party organizations to address needs where funding is lacking, and establish strong and equitable budget principles to meet the needs of our students.
How learning conditions can be improved
One avenue is to increase funding for public education. This would reduce class sizes and add additional staff to address the growing complexity in classrooms. This would give school divisions the ability to start to be proactive about addressing student needs. Supports could also be in the form of tutoring assistance programs, student success centres to help with literacy and numeracy, and further one-on-one student-to-staff interactions to hone in on each student’s needs.
Mental health is a top concern for students and is something that needs to be addressed not by school boards but by the health system. Addressing the mental needs of students as they arise can avoid escalating concerns.
I believe in advancing the division’s current vision of student success and growth. We need to provide some of our more vulnerable student populations with better and more appropriate supports, including our BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ students, to ensure their learning environment is safe and welcoming.
How trustees and school boards can best support teachers
Trustees and teachers have the same objective: to provide students with the best possible educational experience. Trustees need to work hand in hand with teachers (and other staff groups) and provide them with the tools to achieve students’ success. Some of these tools include appropriate resources for the needs of each classroom, additional classroom spaces to decrease classroom sizes, establishing meaningful partnerships with external organizations where gaps in funding exist, and overall being present and accessible to best understand the needs of teachers and to establish accountability.
Views on the new K-6 curriculum
It’s regressive, racist, and focused on America instead of Canada. It’s also plagiarized. It needs to go. Parents, teachers, and boards all agree on this point, and this was the number one issue I heard when I was talking to families while knocking on doors in 2021. Other jurisdictions who followed Alberta’s curriculum have since abandoned it, like the Northwest Territories and international schools.
Instead of going back to the drawing board like the current government, we need to pick up where the review left off in 2018. We need to make sure that the curriculum has as many eyes on it as possible including educational professionals who have inexplicably been left out of this process.
Our students’ education shouldn’t be used as a political tool. Alberta has changed, and the curriculum should reflect those changes. Diversity, anti-racism, and reconciliation are some of the pieces I will advocate to be included in a new draft of the curriculum.