Three new trustees elected to Richmond Board of Education

Three new school trustee were elected to the Richmond Board of Education in Saturday’s municipal election – two who ran with the Richmond Community Coalition, Alice Wong and Rod Belleza, as well as David Yang, who ran with the Richmond Education Party.

They will join incumbent trustees Ken Hamaguchi, who topped the polls with almost 16,000 votes, Donna Sargent, Heather Larson and Debbie Tablotney.

Trustee Richard Lee, who lives in Vancouver, was the only incumbent not elected to the board of education.

In a speech at the Richmond Curling Club, where Richmond Education Party was watching the results coming in along with RITE Richmond and Richmond Citizens’ Association candidates, Yang spoke about teacher and other staffing shortages and the need to “support critical infrastructure.”

He also spoke about the difficulties of growing up in Richmond with English as his second language.

“Kids like me, had to fight every step of the way, to learn their vocabulary, to get their English, right, and most importantly, to learn to get along with the great big family that we are here in Richmond, and in this country,” he said.

“I want to be that voice for the ELL kid who's just struggling to learn his English in class, I want to be the one who's talking for our special needs students, I want to be the one who will be there to support them," Yang said.

Final results:

- with files from Vikki Hui