You’ve seen Capital Daily’s database for council candidates and now we’re bringing you a tool to get to know the candidates running to be school trustees!

On Oct. 15, trustees for three local school boards—School District 61 (Greater Victoria), School District 62 (Sooke) and School District 63 (Saanich)—will be on the ballot alongside candidates running for mayor and council.

School District 61 has nine seats for trustees while School District 62 (Sooke) has seven split between two electoral areas—four seats in Area 1 (Belmont) and three in Area 2 (Milne’s Landing). There are 30 candidates competing for a seat in SD 61 and seven candidates running in each of SD 62’s electoral areas.

The situation is even more complicated in School District 63 (Saanich) where there are four electoral areas. In Sidney, which holds one trustee seat, Nola Silzer has been acclaimed. Likewise, Tim Dunford and Susan Hickman will represent Central Saanich as the only two candidates to put their names forward while Joyce Vandall and Teri VanWell were acclaimed as the trustees for the electoral area covering the districts of Saanich and Highlands.

There are three candidates running for the two seats representing the North Saanich electoral area.

How to use the database:

Similar to Capital Daily’s mayoral and council candidate database, this database is also broken down into three searchable sections, where you can enter specific candidates by name or by school district. Not all candidates responded to our requests to complete the survey, which was first sent out on Sept. 29.

In the first section—The Biography—you’ll find a rundown of candidates' submitted backgrounds, their motivation for running, and any previous relevant experience on school boards. We also asked them how many school board meetings they had attended in the past year.

The second section—The Pitch—will tell you the candidates' top priorities, what they think are the three most important capital projects in their school district, their hiring philosophy, and what they think of the current school board. 

In the final and most substantial section—The Hotseat— candidates were given a chance to give short answers on a wide-ranging variety of subjects including programming priorities, health, and reconciliation. Similarly to our previous lightning round for council and mayoral candidates, school board trustees were asked to respond with just a simple “agree” or “disagree” to our questions. 

We made some questions a bit more flexible: for our question regarding how their school district is doing in regards to building relationships and fostering reconciliation with Indigenous communities, candidates could choose to respond with either too much, not enough, just right, or I don’t know.

Candidates were also asked what they would prioritize on school programs if they could only focus on one of these: improving the quality of existing programs, increasing the variety of programs offered across the district, or increasing all students' ability to access existing programs. 

While we recognize many of these issues are not black and white—and therefore capturing the nuance of any candidate’s stance is not possible with short, limited responses—think of these answers as a starting point for discussion and further questions.