As a TWU professor, Neil knows firsthand the types of students that are graduating through the Langley school district. He says the district should be able to show families what is working, what isn’t working and where their voices go.
Neil Turner announced today that he will seek election as a Langley school trustee this October. He will be part of the Langley Strong team, joining sitting Trustees Candy Ashdown, Holly Dickinson, Charlie Fox and Tony Ward.
Turner has lived in the Township of Langley for more than 45 years and graduated from Langley Secondary School. He earned a BA in physical education at Trinity Western University and a Master of Science in performance analysis at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom and has taught human kinetics at TWU for 30 years. He is a father of three adult children and a grandfather of six.
Being a professor puts Turner at the end of the pipeline that the Langley School District feeds. Every September he meets students who graduated that previous year and sees what type of knowledge and skills they arrive with. He says that vantage point shapes what he would ask of the District: not only whether students graduate, but whether they are ready for whatever they choose next.
“I want to give back, and I want to represent the families who want more out of their child’s education. That is not a complaint about Langley schools. It is that most parents I talk to have little idea about their kid’s school and no clear idea where to take it.” – Neil Turner
Turner’s graduate training is in performance analysis, the discipline of measuring what an organization actually does and comparing it against what it set out to do. He spent 40 years coaching sport, served as technical director of the Ridge Meadows Soccer Club, and works as a coach developer, facilitator and evaluator for BC Soccer and the Canadian soccer program.
“My training is in performance analysis. You measure the thing, you look honestly at what the numbers say, and then you change what you are doing. Districts collect a great deal of data. The question I would want this Board asking is a plain one: what is it telling us, and what did we do about it?” – Neil Turner
Turner ran for the Langley Board of Education as an independent in 2022. He is running this time under the Langley Strong banner, and his stated priorities are preparing students for the full range of paths after graduation, long-term planning for school sites and District finances, and steady two-way contact between the Board and the families it serves.
“Not every student is heading to a university lecture hall, and the system should not be built as though they are. Trades, college, straight to work, university: the measure of a district is whether a student is ready for the one they chose.” – Neil Turner, on preparing students for what comes next
Turner would join the Board at the end of a term of unprecedented growth. The District now serves approximately 27,600 students across 46 school sites. Since September 2024, the Board has opened or secured provincial approval for 5,030 new student spaces, representing approximately $514.5 million in provincial investment, including three new schools and the joint stɑtl̓əw̓ (stot-low) Middle School and Emery Dosdall Secondary campus in Willoughby. One of those projects is a 300-space addition at Langley Secondary, the school Turner graduated from, opening this month.
“Four years of this Board’s work went into getting schools approved and built. The next four are about what happens inside them. Neil teaches the young people our system graduates, so he sees the result of decisions we make years earlier, and he knows how to tell whether something is working. That is a useful person to have at a Board table.” – Candy Ashdown, Langley Strong trustee candidate and Chair of the Langley Board of Education
“I have sat at that table a long time, and the trustees who make the difference are the ones who ask the question everybody else skipped. Neil has spent 30 years in front of students and 40 years running things in this community for other people’s kids. He is not looking for a title.” – Charlie Fox, Langley Strong trustee candidate
Langley’s single Board of Education serves both the City of Langley and the Township of Langley. Five trustees are elected in the Township and two in the City. Turner will seek a Township seat. General voting day is Saturday, October 17, 2026.
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About Langley Strong
Langley Strong is a team of candidates running in the Township of Langley and the City of Langley on a platform of fiscal responsibility, transparent governance and community well-being. The team is led by mayoral candidate Jay Lundgren and includes council candidates Lauren Chalus, Shumail Javed, Margaret Kunst, Barb Martens, Kim Richter, Teresa Townsley and Blair Whitmarsh, and school trustee candidates Candy Ashdown, Holly Dickinson, Charlie Fox, and Tony Ward.
Media contact
Karen Zukas
Media Relations, Langley Strong
Email: media@langleystrong.ca
