DPAC's five big questions for Chilliwack School Board election candidates: Local Election 2026
16 out of 18 candidates vying for the seven seats on October 17 responded to questionnaire from local District Parent Advisory Council
September 30, 2026
Chilliwack DPAC released its 2026 School District 33 Trustee Candidate Response Guide on Tuesday, a compilation of candidate responses to a five-question survey.
Of the 18 registered trustee candidates, 16 responded. No response was received from either Barbara Bednarski or Hayden Rampton.
The survey asked all candidates the same five questions about their top priorities for the district, the biggest challenge facing students and schools, how they would balance the needs of students, families, staff, and taxpayers, the experience and perspective they bring, and how they understand the role of a trustee.
Every candidate received the same questions, at the same time, with the same deadline and the same approximate word limit. Responses have been reproduced as submitted, in the order received, by each candidate. No changes have been made to the content of any response. Minor edits were made only for formatting, consistency, and readability (e.g., spacing, font, capitalization, layout, and typographical formatting).
Here is the complete guide with the answers from all 16 candidates:
DPAC’s goal is to give parents and caregivers a fair, consistent way to hear from candidates in their own words. DPAC does not endorse or rank candidates, and the views in each response belong to the individual candidate, not DPAC.
Families and voters are encouraged to review the candidates' full responses and other publicly available information before making their own decisions.
Chilliwack DPAC is a nonpartisan organization representing parents and caregivers across School District 33 and supporting informed participation in public education, including school board elections.
If you have read this far, I'm sure you are really only interested in my answers, right? Kidding, but here are mine:
1. Top priorities
Artificial intelligence is a technology that represents a defining epoch in human history. How we embrace or shun it, corral or let loose, how we use or misuse AI could literally change the face of the planet. For that reason, we need to teach children and teachers about what AI is, what it could be, what it should be, what the benefits and dangers are. And we need to develop short-term policy on its use, immediately.
Future facility planning for a growing community: Chilliwack is growing fast and won’t stop any time soon. People want to live here. For that reason, we need to plan for the medium and long-term with regard to school sites and facility expansion in concert with the provincial government.
Supporting teachers and EAs: Every adult who had good experiences in school can attribute that to a teacher who made a difference. For those teachers to be able to do that, we need to support them at every turn. Similarly, EAs are under tremendous pressure. More needs to be done to address the problem of EA burnout and how to properly implement inclusion on a continuum.
2. Biggest challenge and Board role
Inclusion. I posted a very simple question on my Facebook page soon after the list of candidates for the election was released. I have more than 5,000 followers so many people saw this. I didn't know what I'd find out, but what I learned quickly was shocking as multiple parents of children with serious learning challenges and many working or former educational assistants told me near horror stories about the job EAs deal with.
I support inclusion for the sake of children on the outside but also the average student who benefits greatly from having a diversity of peers in the classroom. However, there are many documented problems with the practical realities of inclusion at times when, for example, one child becomes incredibly disruptive and a teacher and/or an EA is then essentially one on one for 10, 20, 30 minutes to the detriment of every other child in that class. We need inclusion on a continuum implemented by looking at best practices in other jurisdictions. Keep what's working. Fix what's not.
3. Balancing competing needs
This is a great question. I would do my best to use good judgment, relying on staff expertise, and gathering balanced feedback from students and families while staying focused on the role of a school board trustee and the financial constraints of the district.
We can't please everyone. We can't exclude anyone. This is the incredibly challenging job our teachers and principals and educational assistants deal with every single day.
If hard decisions need to be made, they require wisdom and patience, reflection and measured implementation.
4. Experience, skills and perspective
I am a parent of two children, one of who entered Kindergarten in early French Immersion at its inception and who is now in her final year of secondary school. The other who is currently in grade 9 also going through the EFI program.
My sister is a teacher in Toronto. My mother taught community college. My father taught English in Kenya prior to a career as an English teacher. He later taught special education and saw the challenges that face kids with a learning disability or who otherwise struggle in school. At the age of 16, my father brought home a 14-yearold student who was suffering in an abusive foster home environment. To this day, she credits my father for her success in life, becoming productive and working as a teacher herself. This is the power of a good school experience.
Secondly, professionally I have covered the Chilliwack School Board as a journalist either directly or adjacent to a colleague covering it for 20 years. I’ve read more school board agendas and attended more meetings, probably, than any other candidate. I’m familiar with the workings of large bureaucracies, with local government, with budgets and policy. I'm a professional thinker, writer, manager.
5. Understanding the trustee role
To use a metaphor an incumbent used, trustees should maintain the tracks, not play with the trains.
To use a hockey metaphor, trustees aren’t coaches or trainers nor are they team owners. They are the general managers. They should make sure everything is running smoothly, policy is tweaked where needed, everyone has what they need within reason, budgets are in order, and they should oversee the success of the team.
Trustees should listen to parents, students, staff, and advocate to the provincial government for the interests of the entire district, not just a certain school or the pet interest of a certain set of parents.
There have been problems in recent years with former school trustees (and some candidates in this election) who don’t seem to understand the role. They want to get involved in provincial government policy, interfere with teachers and library books, and criticize district staff.
We've seen school trustees literally reading at public meetings from library books they find offensive. The district became someone famous because of Barry Neufeld's endless anti-SOGI ramblings. That needs to stop.
Don't play with the trains. Don't tell the coach who should be benched.
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Paul J. Henderson
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