Sanjay Sarkar is running for Trustee, Durham District School Board, in the City of Oshawa.
I am a finance director by profession, and I want to bring that to the table where Durham’s school budget actually gets decided.
until polls close, Monday 26 October 2026
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Most people vote for trustee without ever being told what the job is, which is not their fault. Nobody explains it.
Trustees do not run schools. They do not manage principals or teachers, and they cannot overrule a decision made in your child’s classroom. What they do is sit on the board that approves the budget, sets board policy, votes on where schools are built, closed or redrawn, and hires the director of education.
It is a governance job. The single largest thing that crosses the table is money.
I read budgets for a living. That is most of my pitch.
I am a finance director by profession. I am running because the central job of a school board is the one I do every working day: deciding what a fixed amount of money gets spent on, then being able to explain the decision afterwards to people who did not get what they asked for.
I have never held office, and I am not going to pretend I have a record to run on. What I have is the skill this board table is short of, and an interest in Oshawa that did not start the day I filed my papers.
As a Finance Director, I know how to balance a budget. As a resident, I know how important our schools are.
The campaign poster landing in Oshawa mailboxes this month. The QR code goes to the campaign Facebook page. Open the poster at full size
Three commitments. Each one has a mechanism attached, because a commitment without a mechanism is a slogan.
The board’s budget documents run to hundreds of pages. Almost nobody outside the board reads them, and that is a reasonable response to a document that size.
What I will do. Push for a plain-language summary published beside every budget: what came in, what went out, what changed since last year, on one page. If the board will not publish it, I will publish my own version and show my working.
Every dollar that stops at the administrative layer is a dollar that did not reach a classroom. That is not an accusation. It is just what a budget is: a series of choices about where money stops.
What I will do. Before I vote to approve a spend, I want one question answered on the record: how does this reach a student? I will ask it about special education staffing and mental health supports. I will ask it about administration too.
A trustee is the one person in the system who is supposed to be reachable by an ordinary parent. Too often the job stops at attending meetings.
What I will do. Hold an open meeting in Oshawa each term, keep my email and phone number public, and answer messages myself. If you write to me and I disagree with you, you will still get a reply.
Durham is growing faster than its schools are. The decisions about where the next ones go, and which programs survive the next budget, are being made right now by a table of trustees.
Three of those seats are chosen by Oshawa voters on Monday, 26 October. It is one of the shortest ballots you will ever fill in and one of the least contested. A few hundred votes decide it.
How to vote in OshawaOshawa runs internet voting in 2026, so most people will vote from their phone. Here is the order it happens in.
Do this first. If you are not on the list, nothing else works. The City of Oshawa runs the lookup at voteoshawa.ca.
It arrives in the mail and carries the code you need to vote online. Keep it. Without the code you will need to go through the city to get a replacement.
Internet voting opens on 13 October and stays open until 8 p.m. on election day, Monday 26 October. You can do it from a phone.
Advance voting runs 13 to 17 October and again 19 to 23 October at city locations. Check oshawa.ca for hours and addresses.
The school board section of your ballot lets you choose three names. If you only mark one, the other two votes go unused. Sanjay Sarkar is one of eight candidates for the English public board.
| Internet voting opens | Tuesday 13 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Advance voting | 13–17 October and 19–23 October |
| Election day | Monday 26 October 2026 |
| Polls close | 8:00 p.m. on 26 October |
Dates from the City of Oshawa. The city is the authority on all of this, so check oshawa.ca before you rely on anything here.
A trustee is an elected member of the school board. The board approves the annual budget, sets policy, votes on school construction and closure decisions, and hires the director of education. Trustees do not manage staff or run individual schools.
Three. Oshawa elects three Durham District School Board trustees, and they are elected at large, so there are no wards for this office. Every Oshawa elector on the English public list votes for the same three seats.
Monday, 26 October 2026. Polls close at 8 p.m. Internet voting opens 13 October and advance voting runs 13 to 17 October and 19 to 23 October.
Yes. Oshawa uses internet voting in 2026. You need to be on the voters’ list and you need the voting code from your voter information letter. In-person advance voting is also available.
The Durham District School Board, the English public board. It is a separate ballot from the Durham Catholic District School Board and the French-language boards. Which one you vote on depends on how you are registered as a school supporter.
Sanjay Sarkar is a finance director by profession and a certified candidate for trustee, Durham District School Board, in the City of Oshawa for the 26 October 2026 municipal election. He is listed on the City of Oshawa’s registered candidates page and on the board’s election listing.
Email sanjay1981@gmail.com or call 647-853-7379. The campaign also posts on Facebook.
Lawn sign, a question about the board, an argument you think I have wrong. All of it goes to the same inbox and I read it myself.
Oshawa votes Monday, 26 October. You get three picks for school board trustee.
See how to vote