CANDIDATES RUNNING TO SERVE AS SCHOOL BOARD TRUSTEES IN 2026 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS, LONDON, ON
The municipal elections are just two weeks away, and I urge all Londoners to get out to vote on October 26th. Voter turnout for school board elections has historically been low, which is a surprise to me given how important public education is for all of society. To assist voters in making their decisions on who to vote for to serve as trustees on the TVDSB and LDCSB, I’ve created a spreadsheet about each of the candidates. The spreadsheet is organized by position (e.g. all candidates for TVDSB wards 1,11,12,14 are listed together in alphabetical order; followed by all candidates in wards 2-6 in alphabetical order.) Candidates are NOT ranked. Nor am I endorsing or recommending any candidates. The spreadsheet is intended to inform voters about the backgrounds, experience, priorities and political leaning of trustee candidates to help them to choose candidates who may align with their own perspectives, views, etc.
The following data was used to compile the information in the spreadsheet:
Candidates' websites
London Decides – survey responses from trustee candidates (London Decides is a non-partisan local civic-information project that provides voters with background information on municipal and school board elections in London, Ontario. It publishes candidate profiles, questionnaire responses, explanations of trustee and council roles, and plain-language guides intended to help voters make informed decisions. [Political leaning =moderate/none]
Concerned Parents of London and Area (CPAL)– survey responses from trustee candidates (substack) (CPAL are “a grassroots group of parents and citizens committed to combatting the ideological agenda pushed by the school boards that is steering our children away from the curriculum.” [Political leaning = conservative]
Independent Equity Survey of Trustee Candidates - from Sydney Brouillard-Coyle, a doctoral student at Western, queer, non-binary activist [Political leaning = progressive]
In the spreadsheet, I highlight the educational and governance experience among the candidates. By educational experience, I am referring to their experience working in educational settings, especially within public education. Governance experience refers to their experience working in settings (e.g. on a board) where they had experience in governing and have learned about effective/good governance in group-decision making. I also included a column on their current employment. In compiling that data, I am particularly struck by how little experience the candidates have working in the public education sector, or educational experience more generally. I was a rare candidate running in 2022 to serve as a TVDSB trustee given how much experience I had working in public education and as an education researcher. Given the responsibilities associated with being a school board trustee, I wonder why more experience in public education isn’t a requirement for trustee candidates.
The spreadsheet also includes columns on “Understanding about Educational Issues, Policies, etc.” and “Understanding about the Role of Trustees” because, once again, these are important qualifications for anyone who wishes to serve as a school board trustee. The content in these two columns were largely determined from responses to London Decides survey questions and candidate's websites. I looked for evidence of their knowledge about how the education system in Ontario works; about the Education Act, curriculum, supervision, funding of education, and what trustees are and are not responsible for, etc. I was surprised by how some candidates continue to believe that trustees are responsible for the curriculum content in schools, which is completely under the purview of the provincial government.
The top 3 campaign priorities were taken from candidates’ websites, or in a few cases, from other online sources (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook). Student achievement and well-being are referenced a lot on candidates’ websites, which is a good sign that the majority recognize that both are the foundation of our public education system in Ontario. Other words and phrases are used differently among the candidates. For example, the word “equity” seems to mean different things to different candidates; and not always in line with the Ontario government’s perspective that views equity as the recognition that students start from different circumstances and may need different supports and opportunities to achieve comparable educational outcomes.
Many of the candidates either are or have been parents of children attending the local public school. Unsurprisingly, then, most include within their campaign priorities support for parents/ families, parent engagement, and parents’ rights. The latter term has a particular meaning for candidates I consider ‘conservative’ under the political leaning column. These candidates are running on a platform to protect children from what they call ‘woke’ (i.e. progressive) ideologies and are calling for more rights for parents to determine what should not be taught in schools (e.g. gender ideology).
Political leaning is my best estimate of where the candidates stand on contemporary issues, derived from the data sources available. This is not about party membership nor partisan politics. A question mark indicates that I am unsure about the candidates' political learning. I developed 3 loose categories: Conservative, Moderate, and Progressive. Some indicators of each are as follows:
· Progressive = largely positive answers to Independent Survey on Equity (e.g. supports equity, diversity, inclusion, especially 2SLGBTQIA+ rights); calls for increased funding to public education and ending supervision
· Conservative = largely positive responses to CPAL survey - e.g. back-to-basics; pro-parents' rights, opposes indoctrination, age-inappropriate media in schools; supports only 2 genders
· Moderate = largely positive responses to Independent Survey and positive responses to CPAL survey, although may be cautious or say "it depends" or "it's complicated" for some responses
The spreadsheet is far from complete and any errors are mine and mine alone. Any candidates on this spreadsheet are more than welcome to email me at mlarsen@uwo.ca to correct any errors I may have made about them.
Dr. Marianne A. Larsen, #EducationExplained www.mariannelarsen.ca
