Langley's school board vote: 20 candidates, seven seats

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Editor's note: This guide uses public records only. That includes candidate statements filed with Langley City and the Township of Langley, the Langley Advance Times candidate profiles, and public planning documents. Because of the election timeline, we did not send new questions to candidates for this story.

Langley voters will choose seven school trustees on Saturday. Twenty people want the job.

Those seven trustees will sit on one board that runs public schools in both Langley City and the Township of Langley. But each community votes only for its own trustees. City voters pick two, and Township voters pick five.

For the first time since 2018, City voters have a trustee race to decide. In 2022, only two people ran for the City's two seats, so both won without a vote.

The next board faces big questions. Langley is growing fast, and new students need classrooms. Two slates are also running trustee candidates, and either one could win a majority of the board.

Here's how the system works, what's at stake, and who is running.

How one board serves two Langleys

The Langley School District serves both Langleys with one board of seven trustees. Each trustee serves a four-year term.

The seats are split by municipality. Langley City elects two trustees, and the Township elects five.

That means your ballot depends on where you vote. City voters can pick up to two of the five City candidates. Township voters can pick up to five of the 15 Township candidates.

After the election, the seven trustees choose a chair from among themselves. There is no separate vote for chair. The new board holds its first meeting on November 3.

Trustees don't have to live where they run. Candidates must be Canadian citizens, at least 18, and B.C. residents for at least six months. They need two nominators from the area they run in, and they can only run in one area.

What trustees do

A trustee is one of seven votes on the board. The board sets the district's budget, hires its superintendent, and adopts local policies, such as codes of conduct and supports for 2SLGBTQ+ students.

The province writes the curriculum and pays to build new schools. Trustees decide how the district carries out that curriculum, and they ask the province for the new classrooms the district needs.

Does the split match the population?

Not exactly. The 2021 census counted 28,963 people in Langley City and 132,603 in the Township.

That gives the City about 18 per cent of the population but 29 per cent of the board's seats. Each City trustee represents roughly 14,500 residents. Each Township trustee represents about 26,500.

Two slates, one majority

Two slates are running trustee candidates this year: Langley Strong and Progress for Langley. The other nine candidates are independents.

Four votes make a majority on a seven-member board. Either slate could reach that number.

Langley Strong is running six trustee candidates. Five are in the Township: Candy Ashdown, Kathie Dalziel, Holly Dickinson, Charlie Fox and Neil Turner. Tony Ward is its only City candidate. Its Township mayoral candidate is Jay Lundgren.

Progress for Langley is running five trustee candidates, all in the Township: Matt Burck, Olivia Lake de Meza, Norma Jean Maxwell, Betty Siegel and Sean Stevenson. The slate is led by Township Mayor Eric Woodward. It has no City trustee candidates.

In the City race, Ward is the only slate candidate. The other four are independents.

Every returning trustee is on one slate

Four sitting trustees are running again, and all four are with Langley Strong. They are Ashdown, who has chaired the board since 2022, along with Dickinson, Fox and Ward.

The 2022 election produced a different mix. Dickinson won a Township seat that year with the Contract with Langley slate, along with Joel Neufeld and Sarb Rai. Neufeld isn't on this year's ballot, and Rai is running for Township council with Progress for Langley. Marnie Wilson, the fifth Township trustee elected in 2022, is not running either.

None of Progress for Langley's five trustee candidates was elected to the board in 2022.

Why a slate majority matters

A slate majority isn't good or bad on its own. But it can change how a board works. A bloc of four can pass decisions quickly, and it can also mean less open debate at the board table.

In our view, voters deserve to know whether a slate's trustees plan to vote as a bloc. Our earlier reporting found Progress for Langley has not said. It's a fair question for both slates.

Where trustees live

B.C. law doesn't require trustees to live where they serve. But where candidates live has come up in both races.

Neither of the City's current trustees lists a City address. Ward grew up in Langley City and says he lived there for many years, but he now lives in Murrayville, in the Township.

Ashdown won a City seat by acclamation in 2022. She now lists her home in Salmon River Uplands, and this year she is running in the Township.

The other four City candidates all live in the City. Marshall Austin and Celene Hoag live in Blacklock. Jen Elderkin lives in Uplands, and Laura Wierenga lives in Nicomekl.

Hoag's campaign statement says she is the first City resident to run for the board in years. With three other City residents on the ballot, that isn't quite the case this year. But her larger point stands: both City seats are currently held by trustees who list Township addresses.

In the Township race, Norma Jean Maxwell's nomination papers list a home in Surrey. In her Advance Times profile, she describes herself as a Clayton resident who lived in Langley for 20 years and plans to return.

In our view, an address isn't a test of commitment. But a trustee who lives in a community sees its schools and its growth up close. Voters can fairly weigh that.

Growth is coming. School plans need to keep up.

Langley City is set to grow, and that's good news. SkyTrain is coming, and new homes near transit let more people live close to shops, jobs and schools.

The school district expects 6,141 new City residents over the next decade, including 968 new students. Most of those students will live in condos and townhouses. Only 123 are expected to live in single-family homes.

That matters. Families live in apartments too, and their kids need schools they can walk or bike to.

What the district plans

The district says the City's new students can fit on existing school sites, with additions. A 200-seat addition at Nicomekl Elementary opened in 2025.

Several City candidates say that isn't enough. Hoag says the City's newest school is almost 50 years old, and that trustees say another won't be needed for at least 10 years. The district's planning matches that second point. We could not confirm the age of the City's newest school.

Wierenga points to portables, catchment changes and lost supports. Austin says fast growth calls for careful long-term planning. Ashdown, now running in the Township, says she wants to push for new schools.

Who pays for school land

New homes in both Langleys pay a School Site Acquisition Charge. The money helps the district buy land for new schools. The charge has to be the same across the whole district, so the City can't have its own rate.

That has long frustrated Langley City. As of 2024, City projects had paid more than $2 million into the charge since 2002, according to Langley City Mayor Nathan Pachal's blog. None of it had gone to a City school site.

In July, City council approved the district's latest school site plan. But the City says SkyTrain will eventually mean a new school site is needed in the City's northwest.

The Township's growth

The Township's numbers are much larger. The district expects 17,520 new Township residents over the next decade, including 6,371 school-aged children.

A new middle school and a new secondary school are set to open in Willoughby in 2027. As of 2025, the province said it had committed more than $583 million to Langley schools since 2017.

In our view, the answer to growth isn't fewer homes. It's planning schools where the homes are going. That includes City neighbourhoods near SkyTrain, where new homes are already paying into the fund for school land.

Langley City candidates

City voters can choose up to two. Candidates are listed alphabetically.

Marshall Austin (independent)

Austin is a director of transformation at Pattison Food Group. He lives in Blacklock and has lived in the City for more than 23 years. He points to 38 years of leading large teams and managing budgets.

His priorities include literacy and numeracy, trades and career programs, student mental health, and long-term planning for enrolment growth. He ran for a City seat in 2018 and finished fourth of five.

Jen Elderkin (independent)

Elderkin is a stormwater manager with the Township of Langley. She has lived in the City's Uplands area for about 17 years, on and off, and ran for City council in 2022.

She has had three children in the district, with one still enrolled, and has volunteered with school parent advisory councils. Her campaign statement points voters to her Facebook page and YouTube channel for details.

Celene Hoag (independent)

Hoag runs an operations consulting firm and lives in Blacklock. Her children attend school in the City. She studied business, urban land economics and finance at UBC and SFU, and sits on the board of the Langley Care Society.

Hoag says apartments are going up across the City with no new school sites planned. She is running as an independent, saying schools need impartiality.

Tony Ward (Langley Strong)

Ward has been a City trustee since 2018 and is the only slate candidate in the City race. He grew up in Langley City and now lives in Murrayville. He works for the Township of Langley as an asset management technician.

Ward raised three children who attended district schools. He says decisions should be evidence-based and keep students at the centre.

Laura Wierenga (independent)

Wierenga is a former management consultant and City of Vancouver project manager. She now stays home with her four children in Nicomekl, and holds a master's degree in international business.

She says concerns about her catchment school's capacity led her family to choose an independent school. She says that experience is why she wants stronger advocacy for the City's public schools.

Township of Langley candidates

Township voters can choose up to five. Candidates are listed alphabetically.

Candy Ashdown (Langley Strong)

Ashdown has chaired the board since 2022. She was a trustee from 2011 to 2014 and won a City seat by acclamation in 2022. She now lives in Salmon River Uplands and is running in the Township.

She works as a constituency advisor at the B.C. legislature. Ashdown says she wants to push for new schools and strengthen the district's partnership with the Township.

Matt Burck (Progress for Langley)

Burck is director of sales and ticket operations for the Vancouver Giants. He has lived in Murrayville for seven years.

As a father, he says schools do best when families, educators and community groups work together. He wants students to have the resources and opportunities to succeed.

Kathie Dalziel (Langley Strong)

Dalziel is a medical secretary at BC Cancer and a mother. She has lived in Walnut Grove for about 16 years, first as a renter and then as a homeowner.

She lists equity, accessibility, inclusion, transparency and accountability as her core values.

Holly Dickinson (Langley Strong)

Dickinson is a sitting trustee and a teacher. She was elected in 2022 with the Contract with Langley slate and is now running with Langley Strong.

She lives in Brookswood and has lived in Langley for about 24 years. She says public education is both her job and her passion.

Jared Evans (independent)

Evans works in retail management and lives in Willowbrook. He has lived in Langley for eight years, and ran for MP in 2006 and MLA in 2009.

He says he would bring people leadership to the board and push the province for more funding.

Charlie Fox (Langley Strong)

Fox has been a trustee since 2022. Before that, he served four terms on Township council, from 2005 to 2018. He worked in the district as a teacher and administrator from 1973 to 2007.

He lives in South Langley and has lived in Langley for 53 years. Fox says he wants to keep making the district the best in the province.

Alex Joehl (independent)

Joehl manages a grocery store meat department and has lived in Murrayville since 2015. He runs as a libertarian and has run for office many times, including in a 2021 trustee by-election.

He says more tax dollars won't fix the system's problems. He offers himself as an option free of education interest groups.

Olivia Lake de Meza (Progress for Langley)

Lake de Meza is executive director of a non-profit post-secondary organization. She has lived in Walnut Grove for nine years.

She says parents deserve to understand how decisions about their children are made. She wants families to see resources reaching classrooms.

Norma Jean Maxwell (Progress for Langley)

Maxwell is an educator and a former education assistant in Surrey schools. Her nomination papers list a Surrey address. She says she wants to be a strong voice for students of all abilities.

The Langley Union reported this month that Maxwell helped build an online portal in 2021 for families leaving public schools, and called the public system corrupt. She has also said teachers have no business teaching children about homosexuality, transgender identity or pronouns. She compared teachers who kept students masked when it wasn't required to Nazis.

Maxwell, Woodward and the slate's other trustee candidates did not respond to our questions. Read our full report.

Tina Patterson (independent)

Patterson is a high school teacher and a former member of the district parent advisory council. She has lived in Walnut Grove for 21 years.

She points to more than 25 years in education. Her priorities are removing barriers for vulnerable learners, fiscal responsibility and transparent leadership.

Betty Siegel (Progress for Langley)

Siegel is an educator and advocate who has lived in Walnut Grove for 50 years. She says great schools depend on everyone working together.

She wants to keep students at the centre, and give staff a safe workplace and the resources they need.

Sean Stevenson (Progress for Langley)

Stevenson is a Red Seal glazier who has lived in Willoughby for three years.

He wants students to feel they belong, and to know there's more than one path to a good future. He says no student should feel left behind.

Carlos Suarez Rubio (independent)

Suarez Rubio works in customer service and security, and has a background in political science. He has lived in Willoughby since 2017 and has volunteered for the federal and B.C. Conservatives.

He wants the board to lobby for funding, tackle violence and bullying, and expand mental health counselling.

Neil Turner (Langley Strong)

Turner is a professor at Trinity Western University and a coach developer for Canada Soccer. He lives in Willoughby and has lived in Langley for 50 years. He ran as an independent in 2022.

With grandchildren nearing school age, he says he'll bring data-informed thinking to the board.

Blake Venechuk (independent)

Venechuk is a farmer who lives in Milner and has lived in Langley for 24 years. He founded Agri-Kids, which runs farm education programs in the district. He says he has seen problems with transparency, school violence and staff burnout.

On October 16, the Langley Advance Times reported on a conviction related to gun trafficking from Venechuk's early 20s. He told the paper it taught him accountability, and that a pardon is in its final stages.

How to vote on Saturday

General voting day is Saturday, October 17. Polls are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Langley City: Vote at Timms Community Centre, 20399 Douglas Crescent. It's the City's only voting place.

Township of Langley: Vote at any of 15 locations across the Township. The full list is on the Township's voting dates and locations page.

Both municipalities list the ID you'll need on their election pages.

The provincial election is a separate vote, on October 24. Advance voting for that election runs until October 21.

Whoever wins on Saturday will help decide where Langley's next classrooms go, and how every student is treated in them. Look up your candidates, and vote.

References

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Tagged in:

2026 Municipal Elections, Education, 2026 Langley Trustees

Last Update: October 16, 2026