About Me

Experienced  catholic leadership that is Accountable      And Approachable

Being a Catholic trustee is part of who I am because it reflects my commitment to family, Faith, and using your God-given talents to serve your community.

I have been married to Stephen for 40 years and we have been blessed with three children. Our eldest, our son, is a helicopter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force, is married and has four beautiful children, two boys and two girls. Our daughter emigrated to the UK 9 years ago, and has recently blessed us with our fifth grandchild. After moving to Schomberg 37 years ago and commuting to Toronto to work while juggling daycare arrangements for two small children, my husband and I decided to try to make it work as a one income family. It was not long after my third child was born and the others were enrolled at St.Patrick CES, that I became involved at the school, being a member of the Catholic School Council, volunteering in my son’s grade 1 class, and running the milk program.  The trustee at the time was ‘retiring’ and suggested that I run for the position of trustee and I was first elected in 1994.

Over the years I have found that the knowledge and skills I learned while attaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering with a Minor in Business and a Master’s Degree in Structural Engineering have served me well when balancing budgets and dealing with school construction, as well as being actively involved in bargaining with all our employee groups . In my years as trustee the Board has grown from 69 to 103 schools and grown by about 10000 students.

In 1998 I was elected by my fellow Board members as Chair. I have had the honour of serving in that position for 21 years, years that were challenging with strikes, funding model changes, financial restraints, and high growth. More recently we have had to face the challenges of declining enrolment and a global pandemic. I am proud that we were always able to work together to ensure that money was spent on the classroom and programming addressed the needs of our students. Recently, Catholic education has been called into question across the province, but I feel that here in York Region, our board is respected as a community partner.

I have also worked hard at the Provincial level, 9 years as a Director on the board of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association. More recently I represent Ontario’s Catholic school boards on the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada (CMEC) Copyright Steering Committee.

My husband and I are members of St.Patrick Parish in Schomberg which is affliated with St. Mary in Nobleton. As a trustee I have had the pleasure of  also representing the Catholic communities of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Aurora, Sacred Heart Parish in King City, and St. Mark Parish in Stouffville.