Newly elected Mountain View School Division administrators hope they can help end months of turmoil surrounding the school board.

Scott Lynxleg said the first step for him was getting elected.

“Hopefully we’ll get together, work, see what’s going on and, yeah, start building a better board for the kids.” Lynxpaw said.

Lynxleg was one of four trustee candidates who won Wednesday’s byelection.

Floyd Martens, Conrad Nabess and Jarri Thompson were the others.

Nabess, Lynxleg and Thompson identify as indigenous.

The seats became vacant after a series of events that began in the spring.

In April, Trustee Paul Coffey made a presentation to the board where he questioned the impact of residential schools.

“They were good, like, these are the good things that are essential for reading, writing and arithmetic, also law enforcement in schools and school attendance,” Coffey said in April.

The comments sparked immediate reaction from Indigenous leaders and the superintendent, whom the board later fired. Three trustees resigned and there was also an unrelated vacancy.

The province ordered a governance review and established an oversight committee to handle the fallout.

Thompson, the daughter of a residential school survivor, said she ran in part because of Coffey’s comments.

“That scared me a little bit and I thought, ‘What if my daughter had to go through some of the things that I had to go through with racism,’” Thompson said.

Thompson and Lynxleg say they ran to bring change to the board and promise to work with existing members, while educating them.

“I don’t want to come in here and have conflicts,” Thompson said. “I want to go in there and have unity. Hopefully I want to bring a perspective that maybe they don’t have.”

“Imagine if your children were there and there was no one to represent them?” Lynxpaw said. “How would you feel? That’s how I take it. “I get very excited.”

Mountain View Teachers Association President Chance Henderson said he is happy with the new administrators.

“I mean, our board of directors right now has unprecedented diversity,” Henderson said.

Henderson is optimistic about the future of the board.

“With the resignations on the board and all that uncertainty, it’s certainly been a challenge for people.”

CTV News reached out to Paul Coffey and the board president but did not receive a response.