The only member of the Langley Board teaching full time says the District’s positive progress should continue.

Langley school Trustee Holly Dickinson announced today that she will seek a second term this October as part of the Langley Strong team, joining sitting Trustees Charlie Fox and Candy Ashdown.

Dickinson is an elementary school teacher in the Surrey School District, where she has taught since 2012. B.C. school trustees cannot be employed by the district they govern, which makes her the only member of the Langley Board of Education who currently works in a classroom. She has served as the Board’s Vice-Chair and represents the Board on the BC School Trustees Association Provincial Council, the Langley Local Immigration Partnership, and the District’s 2SLGBTQ+ committee.

She says being in a school every day shapes how she approaches the decisions that come to the Board table.

“Every Board decision I vote on, I see land the next morning. Not in a report six months later. In a classroom, on a Tuesday, with actual students in it. That changes what questions you ask before you vote.”

– Holly Dickinson

Before becoming a teacher, Dickinson worked in Human Resources managing unionized employees, including recruiting more than 1,000 workers, many to help staff an Olympic venue during the 2010 Winter Games. She says that experience continues to inform how she approaches governance, particularly when considering staffing, labour relations and the operational impacts of Board decisions.

Dickinson said one of the accomplishments she is most proud of from her first term is helping build a Board that can work constructively together, even when trustees do not always agree.

“This Board spent a full term learning to work together, and it got there. That is not automatic and it is not permanent. I would love to spend the next four years building on what we have rather than rebuilding it.”

– Holly Dickinson

Dickinson has served through a period of unprecedented enrolment growth in Langley. The District now serves approximately 27,600 students across 46 school sites, while communities such as Willoughby continue to grow rapidly. 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.

“While the progress is fantastic, we still have a lot more work to do. We are one of the fastest growing districts and we cannot let up in our advocacy for Langley to be a top priority for new school builds.”

– Holly Dickinson

Dickinson has also pushed other levels of government for the resources Langley schools need to keep pace with that growth. In 2025, she brought forward a motion calling on the provincial government to reconsider its response to Langley’s capital plan and immediately fund the new schools identified as priorities by the District.

Her advocacy has also extended beyond Langley. Through the BC School Trustees Association, Dickinson successfully advanced resolutions calling for targeted federal funding to better support newcomer and refugee students who are English Language Learners, and for changes to B.C.’s inclusive education funding model so funding for students with intensive needs better reflects the actual level of support they require.

“Being a trustee isn’t just about voting on what comes in front of you. Part of the job is pushing other levels of government when the system isn’t giving our students or our schools what they need. I’ve tried to use Langley’s voice – and my voice provincially – to do exactly that.”

– Holly Dickinson

For Dickinson, those priorities are closely connected to what she sees in her classroom: increasing complexity, growing communities and educators taking on a disproportionate burden of the load to meet a wider range of student needs.

“I know what it looks like when a student needs more support than the system has the resources to provide. I also know how much difference the right support can make. That classroom perspective has been at the centre of how I’ve approached this job for the last four years.”

– Holly Dickinson

Dickinson says being elected for another term would be a great honour.

“I am really proud of the progress we have made over the past four years, but we are not finished. Our graduation rates are above the provincial average, and we still have work to do to increase completion rates for our students who are Indigenous and those with diverse abilities. I would also like to focus on how we can better support mental health initiatives in the district.”

– Holly Dickinson

If re-elected, Dickinson says her focus for a second term will be on three things: continued advocacy for new school construction in Willoughby and the District’s other fast-growing communities, raising completion rates for Indigenous students and students with diverse abilities, and expanding mental health supports in Langley schools.

Dickinson grew up in Brookswood and attended Langley schools from kindergarten through Grade 12. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia. She began coaching Langley girls’ youth soccer while still in high school and continued coaching youth sports in her school for over a decade.

“I went to Langley schools from kindergarten to Grade 12. Now I vote on them. This community gave me my education, my start as a coach, and eventually the opportunity to serve it as a trustee. Langley has always been home, and I care deeply about what our schools look like for future generations.”

– Holly Dickinson

Her involvement with students and families extends beyond the classroom. Dickinson has organized her school’s Terry Fox Run for more than a decade and has led its annual Christmas hamper drive for the past ten years, directly supporting more than 150 hampers for families within her school community while contributing donations that have helped hundreds more through the Cloverdale Community Kitchen.

“The hamper drive is the part of the year I would not give up. You find out very quickly which families in your school are one bad month away from trouble, and you find out that everybody else wants to help once somebody organizes it. That is most of what governing is, too.”

– Holly Dickinson

Dickinson was first elected to the Langley Board of Education in 2022 and has sat as an independent Trustee since 2023. She says she chose to run with Langley Strong this year because the team’s priorities for the District, continued advocacy for new schools and a Board that works together, are the ones she has spent four years on. She is seeking re-election as part of Langley Strong alongside Fox and Ashdown.

“Holly is the one Trustee who walks out of a Board meeting and into a classroom. There is no substitute for that, and this Board would be poorer without it.”

– 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.

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 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 and Charlie Fox.

Media contact: Karen Zukas, Langley Strong | Kzukas@LangleyStrong.ca