Dear Neighbour,

Former Ontario Premier Bill Davis once said, “Show me a good doctor, a good lawyer, a good whatever and I will show you a good kindergarten teacher, a good high school teacher and a good university professor. There is no more important commitment that a government can make than to education.”

Growing up, my family didn’t have a lot, but we had access to great education through our public system, and the opportunities opened up by our schools need to be supported and protected for all our children. As our school board continues to navigate this time of uncertainty in education, I’m here to work together for better for my kids and yours, and the future of our region. I know how much is at stake and I hope to have your support.

As your trustee and a fellow parent of PDSB students, my focus has been on providing safe, welcoming, and well-maintained schools for all students in Wards 6&11 and throughout the board. The time I spend visiting the 28 schools I represent has helped me be a strong representative for our community’s needs, and has enabled me to advocate for policies that have made our schools safer and improved supports for students. I know how important this work is, for your kids and mine. There are a lot of challenges in education right now. Our children all deserve the best start we can offer them and a strong voice to fight for them. I hope I can count on your vote to continue that work.

TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND LOCAL VOICE:

The Peel District School Board is one of eight boards under provincial supervision. The first five boards were taken over before the government passed Bill 33, and the Minister was required to show cause for taking control of those school boards. Following the passage of that legislation, The Minister of Education can now take over school boards for any reason he deems necessary. Learn more about supervision HERE.

As parents, you place your trust in the school board when you send your children to school every day. As a fellow parent, I know how important this is and I take it seriously, because I make the same decision to send my kids to PDSB schools every day. When you have questions, concerns, or challenges, you deserve answers and support, and a board that is working to make your child’s school safe and welcoming for your family and for every child.

Trustees don’t have unlimited power and there are things we can’t do. We can’t intervene in operations. We can’t fire people, no matter how many times you ask. This is completely outside our authority per the Education Act. We can help you navigate the system, we can help connect you to the appropriate staff for support, and we can work to address systemic challenges together with our colleagues.

As your trustee I have spent a great deal of time in the 28 schools I represent, visiting often during regular school times and with a standing policy to my principals that if my calendar is open, I’ll accept every invitation. This has given me the opportunity to get to know the schools in our community well and understand the strengths and areas for improvement firsthand. Parent questions and concerns are taken seriously, and conversations over the years with students, parents, and staff have informed my work in board and committee meetings. Your voice matters, and I have spent the last four years working to bring the needs of our community to work with me every day.

CURRENT PARENT PERSPECTIVE:

As a parent with two kids currently in PDSB schools (grades seven and eleven), I share many of the same hopes and concerns you speak about with me at your doors, in our community, by phone, and through email. I’ve seen the challenges my kids, their classmates, and families in our neighbourhoods have been facing through these last thirteen years as we’ve faced them together, and I want to strengthen that perspective within our board.

PARENT AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:

People often don’t know who their trustee is until they need support. This was true for me as a parent years ago, and while I’d done my homework before voting for my local trustee, as a busy parent with young kids I hadn’t paid close attention past the election and I didn’t know much about our Board of Trustees until I connected with one of our local trustees following the loss of our child, and then delegated to the board, advocating for measures that would help improve safety in our schools. Today as a trustee, one of the things I’m most proud of is connecting with families I’ve been able to support over the last four years. While trustees are not able to solve every problem, it’s been an honour to help families navigate challenges with bussing, EA support, transcripts, boundaries, questions about board policies, support during challenging times, and so much more. This role is unpredictable, and the questions that come our way can be as diverse as the wonderful community we serve. I strive to provide regular updates about what’s happening at the board through social media, I regularly attend school and community events, and I have been available to parents and members of the community throughout this term. Thank you to all of you who have placed your trust in me. I would be grateful for the opportunity to continue that work over the next term. We can’t fix what we aren’t talking about, and your voice has been vital. Let’s keep going.

STAFFING LEVELS:

Peel schools are currently struggling with staffing shortages across all positions throughout the board. As your trustee, I have advocated each year in the budget process to prioritize staffing for student supports, and in the 2025-26 budget successfully advocated for an additional 121.5 EAs in our staffing complement. Staffing ratios continue to be a challenge across Ontario under the current funding formula. My top priority is continuing to address this issue locally to the best of our ability to ensure our schools are appropriately staffed so our kids will receive the instruction and support they need and deserve in our schools. This is the most important thing we can do to serve student safety and achievement, and I will continue working for further improvements here.

SAFETY:

I know how important this is. We all want our kids to be safe at school, and our family has had our own challenges with this. Kids can be messy, adventurous, clumsy, and more likely to experience injury and illness as they interact with each other. We can’t prevent every scraped knee, stuffy nose, or even a broken bone during a game at recess, as much as we’d love to prevent our kids from ever experiencing harm. We can take steps to help reduce risk and keep kids safer. As trustee I have prioritized preventative measures to help keep more kids safe and well at school.

The most important thing we can do for physical safety falls to the priority listed above: staffing ratios. We continue to be limited by the provincial government by mandated ratios and underfunding, but I have consistently advocated for the use of our resources to best meet the needs of our students and staff through appropriate staffing to best support safety and student achievement. At a system level that advocacy has resulted in more Educational Assistants, and in individual schools where challenges were arising, triaged staffing supports have helped create a better school climate for everyone. This makes a difference and should serve as an example province-wide.

Watching one of our kids experience a serious head injury at school helped me work with staff to strengthen our concussion protocols, improving our board-wide preparedness when a student has such an accident at school, and for whatever length of time it may take following the concussion for recovery.

Having taken a great deal of emergency response training through volunteer work, I know the benefit of first aid and CPR training when an emergency happens. I’ve had to use my training more than I’d have expected, and have saved a life and also been unable to save a life – but been grateful to know that I did everything that was possible and have never had to live with the regret of not having training. I successfully advocated for greater first aid and CPR training throughout our system.

Recognizing that days are getting hotter, and our schools along with them, in 2025 I successfully introduced a mandate for an improved response to extreme heat days in our schools. Thank you to teachers and education workers who, on declared extreme heat days, shared temperatures in your classrooms while I visited schools in my wards with a thermometer to gather data.

Following the loss of our son to a school flu outbreak, I have spent the last decade advocating for improved illness prevention measures, and particularly improved communications throughout our school system to ensure parents have the information they need to help protect their families and keep our classrooms safer. I first delegated to the Board of Trustees on this topic in 2019, and as your trustee continued this work with our communications department. We would give anything to have Jude back, and I’d dearly love to help prevent other families from being in our shoes.

YOUR REPRESENTATIVE:
Let me tell you about just some of the work I’ve done to represent our community this term:
• Mandate for improved response to extreme heat days
• Successfully advocated for 121.5 additional EAs
• Improved illness prevention communications
• Improved emergency preparedness in schools
• Action plan to address targeted bullying and violence
• Advocated for improved transportation support
• Worked with municipal partners to build a new track and field in our community
• Advocated to fix the funding formula
• VOC1 review
• Advocated for improved supports and pathway options for students who would have previously been part of the board’s VOC2 program
• Formed the Trustee Advocacy Network with trustees across the province to ensure trustees would remain on the ballot this October, protecting your local voice, transparency, and accountability
• Live-streaming SEAC meetings to provide public access to parents of children with special needs after the Ministry’s choice to discontinue the practice
• Successfully advocated not to discontinue exams for students in grades 9&10 as board policy

COMMITTEE WORK:
• Budget (public, transparent, and balanced every year)
• Discipline (Chair)
• Physical Planning, Finance, & Building
• Governance & Policy
• Curriculum, Equity, & Student Well-being (Vice-Chair)
• Mississauga Traffic Safety