Exclusive Interview with SMOB finalist Sami Saeed

The Montgomery County Student Member of the Board (SMOB) Election will be held this week on April 19. The SMOB is a voting member of the Board of Education (BOE) elected solely by students. You can read more about the BOE structure here.

You can read more about the finalists on the MCPS site but we have interviewed both of them and you can see answers from Sami Saeed below. We have also done research on historic SMOBs as it relates to the schools of the finalists.

SMOB and Student representation

Both of the finalists schools have had numerous SMOBs.  What support structure is in place at your school that cultivates student leaders?

I know both Richard Montgomery and Springbrook have an IB program. Usually when you look at students members of the board from Richard Montgomery, they are in the IB program. I’m not someone in that group. But I do think that’s a big it’s a big contributor, especially Richard Montgomery because our IB program is so big and competitive here. Usually when you see student leaders they come from this program. I pondered this question a long time at least for Richard Montgomery specifically, why do we have so many student advocates, and student members of the board? There’s a lot of factors. We have such a diverse community that breeds student leaders and student advocates because if you go to a school where one race or ethnicity, ethnic group there dominates, you tend to go in one direction and there isn’t as much breeding ground for different ideas, different thoughts, different experiences that kind of create that motion towards advocacy. At Richard Montgomery, you have a melting pot. So you’re seeing the effects of whether it be racism, homophobia, everything because there’s so many different groups of people. I think that after doing some school visits, you may or may not get to see that at some other schools without as much diversity.

Obviously there is also the IB program. Richard Montgomery often gets kind of the best of the best of students because it’s very competitive and this is one of the best IB programs. So you’re gonna have some top students in their class, apply to Richard Montgomery. And so basically, you get students who live all over the county, who were bound to be great servant leaders, they end up at Richard Montgomery for that program. Then Richard Montgomery tends to breed strong student leaders but not necessarily people who were zoned in that area, but people who come from all over and just happen to go to Richard Montgomery. I know that’s definitely not the case for me. I’m just someone from RM not an IB or anything like that. But I think that those two factors are probably some of the biggest ones that as well as the fact that we have a very strong SGA and I think that we have one of the most active SGA. I tried to create this President’s Council this year where we had school presidents from all the schools come together and talk about things, and I definitely noticed Richard Montgomery was I would say, top three or top five most active. When you have a strong SGA that means more outreach about events, communication, county wide affairs and everything like that. So I think those are definitely some big factors. When it comes to Springbrook, I think their SMOB thing at least was a little bit before RM I think RM is a little more recent, so I guess that maybe things have changed. But I think the IB program at Springbrook is definitely a big contributor.

What will you do to ensure that the schools who have never had a SMOB are represented?

My campaign really is centered around underrepresented areas, especially the DCC and NEC in general. So I have some solutions to ensure that every student has the ability to get these opportunities. One is presenting opportunities for students to join leadership organizations testify to the board get this necessary experience in classes. Right now it often happens in emails and newsletters. Sometimes those emails are only going out to the people that are already in the organizations. MCR is a good example of that. So what happens is you’re getting the same students who are already involved in the system, able to continue the system and then when you look at the kind of line there, they have friends or people they know that are younger and they kind of continue the lineage and that’s why it comes from the same collected schools it’s because of that system. So to break out of that I want to have presentations in classes like English which is where they used to host the SMOB monthly minutes, something I want to bring back. These presentations will have show students directly hand them on a silver platter opportunities on how they can join these organizations. So you know whether you’re going to a DCC school like Wheaton or on Senator Kennedy, where you’re going to kind of West County school like Whitman Churchill, no matter where you go, you’re getting that information. Also generally more equitable funding. I know right now, the county has really focused funding mainly on just population alone, but I think when it comes to extracurricular activities, for example, I think there needs to be a more equitable scope. By looking at what schools have a historical disadvantages, some schools have certain populations that may have been held behind for a long time, and that’s really a big factor, especially I’ve seen during school visits. I think that getting them the little extra push for funding would definitely help get students more involved in those opportunities.

I also think hosting more events in those areas near the DCC or NEC. With the forums on fentanyl the first one was hosted in Clarksburg and I know that got a little bit of outrage saying this is not a problem we’re seeing in this area as much. It’s a problem we’re seeing, mainly DCC areas. I know Kennedy, had a big one and you’re hosting the event super far away. So none of the people that need the support were getting it and then they kind of moved it down. They got Northwood, they got Paint Branch, and that’s what we should have done from the beginning. So when we’re having a lot of these forums, having these types of events, we need to make them more accessible to those communities. I definitely want them to continue. I think they’re fantastic. Also on the most basic level, translating videos, documents, everything like that so you have non English speaking students able to access it as well is extremely important.

And then utilizing community leaders. By community leader, I just mean anyone who’s really involved in certain specific communities. For example, the head of minority Scholars Program in Montgomery county his name is Mr. Williams. He’s a fantastic community leader who reaches out to students of color, getting them to really push students to join these organizations because minority Scholars Program is a great example. I started going to their meetings just a few weeks ago and I saw this collection of passionate driven students specifically from the DCC and NEC, which is not something you really commonly see and they were really driven towards a lot of these schools. They had a retreat that when they taught workshops and everything, I thought that was fantastic. And we can utilize not only the community leaders but these organizations and give them more outreach. That’s going to help students develop the skills they need to be able to get involved in more advocacy, get involved in more organizations and that’s going to help level the barrier

Another thing and I don’t want to keep rambling on here, but this is something I’m very passionate about and I kind of came up with myself. I want to introduce new legislation into organizations, especially MCJC and MCR to actually put limits on the number of students per school that can join but not huge limits. So if we want these organizations to be equitable in proportion to their size of the executive board, we would need six students per school across every high school and obviously I wouldn’t introduce a limit that high but I’d say about 10 to 12, is where I’m looking at because right now we have about 15 students who are from Richard Montgomery and two students from Einstein. That’s just one example I can think of off the top of my head. That is inequity. The fact that we don’t have these limits already is crazy to me, because theoretically, you could have 50 students from Richard Montgomery on the exec board and none from any other school. That’s what’s possible right now.

And while it’s obviously not reaching that level, it’s still the fact of the matter that a lot of these West County, Central County, Upper County schools have way more students from those schools than other ones and if we at least put limits, we can ensure that those extra spots are going specifically to those underrepresented schools. And then people looking over those applications who are often in tight circles where they want to get their friends have to reevaluate and say okay, now this school has clearly way too many people let’s look at some other areas we can get people in. Once you change the student leadership organizations, the policies, the outreach, everything like that tends to become more equitable with it. So you’re going to have more DCC and NEC students be able to get, their friends, their families, their community, into those organizations and kind of the lineage I was describing earlier where you can kind of see some future SMOBs all the way four or five years back, from middle school they start. You can get different, more diverse communities there. They can build up that experience. You’re gonna see some SMOBs coming from schools that never had them and I think Quince Orchard may have been on that list. So things like that are part of my action plan to address that issue.

MCPS Discipline

Do you think MCPS gives teachers and admin the ability to effectively discipline students?

I think with discipline there’s kind of two separate areas. One of them is going to be areas where students require mental health support. Then the other one is where they require more traditional disciplinary actions. When it comes to things like drug use or maybe an attendance issue or anything like that, that should be dealt with through restorative justice practices, talking to students, finding the root of the problem. I know that we’ve tried classic disciplinary punishments, like suspensions and expulsions for those things for years for decades. And it doesn’t work. Drug use is only going up. Attendance is lower, and there’s a whole thing about the attendance policy, which I can get into later. I think that for those kinds of things, mental health support for students is necessary.

Then the only areas I really see traditional disciplinary policy come in is when students are promoting hate in our county. I think that that’s when the suspensions and expulsions need to be introduced. But in general answering the question of do I think teachers have leeway to do that? Somewhat. I think that right now, what I’m seeing with the system is teachers themselves don’t really have the ability to enforce. It has to go through administration, and every school has their own policy. But since I’m not a supporter of you the classical “oh, you’re getting suspended,” I don’t think it’s necessarily important for teachers, to be able to discipline students, though I do believe that there should be an attendance policy. This is something that I know our current SMOB doesn’t agree with.

I know my opponent doesn’t agree with but I am of the belief that something like an attendance policy needs to exist. I don’t support credit loss, I think that disproportionately affects certain communities. But I think that there needs to be something in place that’s urging students to go to school because I think that’s a disciplinary measure that’s necessary. Because right now, students don’t have to show up and can coast with a D and graduate high school, and that’s going to make the high school diploma, basically worthless if we continue this. I think that to be completely honest, MCPS is trying to inflate graduation rates.

By having these balancing measures like the 50% rule where right now you need to literally contact parents to give students a zero on an assignment they didn’t do, which I think doesn’t make absolutely any sense. I think that having a policy to show up to school, the most basic level of education, I think that’s a necessity. After talking to teachers, I’ve realized how much of a necessity that is. You’ll often see students say maybe not, but then when you talk to any teacher, they say 100% We need that and I sympathize with that. So I think that teachers kind of need more ability to be able to say, okay, the students aren’t coming to class, that there needs to be action taken. But in terms of general discipline, I’m more of a supporter of going in the direction of mental health support rather than general disciplinary policies.

What do you think is and isn’t working as far as Restorative Justice in MCPS?

I’ve seen studies or just interviews in general, showing that the restorative justice approach may not be 100% the solution every case. I know in attendance, I still do believe that these conversations are necessary, but I’m definitely hearing things that some schools I think Einstein was an example are taking better restorative approach, but the attendance rates are not, coming up. So I think it’s a balance, right? I think that you need that policy. I’m just going to use attendance as an example because it’s a very easy example people can wrap their heads around. You need a policy that says if you’re not showing up for a certain number action is going to be taken. While I don’t support credit loss, there needs to be some sort of reason the student needs to show up that’s going to affect their academics. I think that’s just a necessity, though I think the way going about that discipline should be through restorative justice. I think you cannot go too far one way or the other. In a lot of cases, just a conversation is not going to solve the problem. But then on the other side, just a suspension is not going to solve the problem either. You have to find that middle ground. So I think that when looking at when a student has a behavioral issue, like attendance or like maybe getting in fights, or anything like that, the first step should be that restorative justice, that conversation, that evaluating your home life, because that’s almost always the cause. And then it should follow with mental health support. But I think if the problem persists as restorative justice, then we can look into different kinds of ways to kind of remove the problem or to kind of remove that student from the situation. Though I think that the first step should always be restorative justice. Just having that and not having any actual teeth, in terms of policy that’s not going to work and you’re going to need something that’s going to actually motivate people to show up. And I think that the thing is, a lot of students kind of don’t generally support that because it’s more convenient to know that, “oh, I don’t have to show up to school.” But I think if you actually had a conversation with one of these students and say be honest, are you advocating for what you want or what would actually help you? And I think that what students they want is no policy to have to show up. But what will actually help students get something that’s going to really make sure that they are. It’s like saying, if you don’t turn in an assignment, the 50% rule is another good example. Should you get 50%? I think students would love that. However, a lot of students have even told me while it’s great I don’t think it makes any sense. They think that it’s negatively impacting their work ethic. So going back to restorative justice, I think it should always start with restorative justice, but it needs to be accompanied by something actually tangible, as well, like an actual tangible disciplinary policy.

What do you think can and should be done about the rise of anti semitism and other hate in MCPS?

We’ve got a few things I want to do to deal with this. The first thing I touched on earlier is that I’m a strong believer based on situations I’ve heard, if it has shown 100% that a student has drawn swastikas on guests in lockers, that is saying Jews are not welcome or they’re spray painting that at the front of a school, that student I think restorative justice is not necessarily fixing it. If you’re promoting a sense of violence and hatred in a community that is literally making students scared to go to school, there shouldn’t be “Oh, it was a mistake” or “oh, my kid didn’t know.” I’ve heard too many times someone maybe using a vape in the bathroom or who has mental health problems getting kicked out. And then someone who is genuinely promoting hatred and violence, allowed to stay for whatever reason. I think that if that person is continually doing this, if it is proven, that person does not belong in Montgomery County Public Schools. If there are people who are genuinely promoting hatred, that they are part of the problem and that continues to happen, they should not necessarily be welcome if you’re going to support hatred and violence. I don’t think that you should be welcomed in our public schools.

Further than that, I think that prevention is definitely a big thing. A lot of schools say there are no place for hate school, but they don’t really act on it. We need more assemblies and town halls that talk about this issue that introduced it to students talk about “if you see something, say something” or how to identify if someone is developing bias or anything like that. Anti Semitism is rising, anti Asian American hatred was rising during COVID. I think it’s important to teach students how to kind of identify and report these things as well as our curriculum.

I actually testified to the board of education about this. Our curriculum needs to cover more diverse areas. I think that if students were knowledgeable about different cultures and ethnicities, usually it tends to be that violence and hatred goes down once they’re more understanding that but also we need to stop just teaching about negative aspects of these cultures. We also need to talk about positives. What prompted me to actually testify to the board (I posted the testimony on my Instagram) was about how I’m Arab American and we’ve almost never learned about the Arabian Peninsula. I’ve asked fellow Arabs the same thing in other schools, they say the same thing. And then earlier this year in my IB global politics class (I don’t take IB but its an optional extracurricular courses) we finally did learn about it and all we learned about was terrorism and war. There was a question that literally said, “What is the Middle East known for” and the answer that was in the packet was terrorism and war. I thought to myself, and I was so angry, if we’re teaching our students that, for example, Arabs are defined by terrorism acts of violence. Why do you think students go on to develop the mindset of hatred and bias and it’s not just Arabs. When you’re teaching only the negative aspects of all types of cultures.

I went to a minority Scholars Program Task Force, and someone gave a great presentation. This was about African American history. Yes, it’s important to cover the negatives and the hardship and the hatred that these groups face. But you need to teach about the triumphs about the parts where they thrived as well. If you’re saying we’re teaching about these cultures, but you’re only teaching the negatives, you are promoting, in my opinion, a negative mindset that could lead to hatred in the future. I think that needs to end. We need to learn about more cultures, but we need to see them in a positive light. What about the great societies of the Arab world? What about everything like that? We pretty much never learned about that outside of Mesopotamia, which really isn’t even what we need to be learning about. It needs to be more modern. So I think that that’s definitely a big thing. It starts at the root if we can have a more diverse and positive curriculum towards other cultures. If we can promotes non hatred centered counting, stop saying we’re place for hate and not doing anything but having these assemblies. Then once a situation does happen, actually provide meaningful punishment and ensure that we’re removing hatred from our county. That’s the three step plan for prevention, action, and getting the problem out of our public schools.

More personal open ended questions

If the school board gave you $1 million to spend on schools as you wish, what would you do?

It’s definitely a hard question because a lot of initiatives don’t necessarily require money. They require a change in attitude. So off the top of my head I’m thinking about, I want to try and get a number of homework free weekends for the SATs and ACT in our high schools, as well as monthly wellness days, which are instructional days but days teachers can’t assign new work. Those don’t necessarily require money, but a change in attitudes. And that’s a lot of my policies. But if I had to think of one thing off the top of my head, that wouldn’t be something like equitable funding. Because that’s reallocating funds.

I think environmental advocacy is very important. It’s a necessity in our schools. And I think that if I just had a million dollars, I’d definitely invest it into things like geothermal heating systems in schools and funding composting programs. I actually know some of the founding members of compostology, which is a great group including some at RM. At RM they have these new you new bins where instead of throwing your leftover food into the trash you use a compost new. I think it’s like 70 to 80,000 tons of food goes into landfills in Montgomery County annually. Instead you put it into these new trash bins, and they actually compost it. They’ve testified to the Board of Education to get funding. And I think it’s an absolute necessity that we are giving them funding. I think that that’s super, super important. And so if I just had a million dollars, which in a $3.2 billion budget is not a huge amount really I would probably spend it on small things that we can do to promote environmental advocacy.

What do you do for self care and how would you work to promote school-life balance for all students?

During this SMOB election self care becomes quite difficult when you’re balancing so many things. I’m on SGA, I’m on Montgomery County Commission on Youth and Children, SMOB advisory cabinet, all this kind of stuff along with school, along with the election. So self care for me kind of looks like taking a break from social media occasionally, and just relaxing, listening to music, taking some time for myself. On the weekends, going to see friends and everything like that I think is definitely a big relief for me. Sometimes you get so involved on social media and school visits that you need to take a sec and say “Hey, I’m still here.” And sometimes I’m driving to the schools and I’m thinking gosh, I almost want to just pull over and just sit there and take a chill pill because I’ve been working for so long. I’m going here, I’m going there talking to students, getting the crowds, getting questions and then going. Some days I’m literally not home, from when I leave the house at 7am to when I get home at 10pm. I’m not home, I’m constantly doing something and then getting home and kicking my feet up and saying “gosh, I need to do it all over tomorrow?” So self care is definitely more difficult during this but I definitely think that when you have that break, take it and all that.

I think the biggest thing is having designated times where you’re working at designated times where you have breaks. I know the big problem that leads students to stress is being unstructured. This is something that I know leads me to a lot of stress and it leads to procrastination when you don’t have any sort of structure when you’re going to work and when you’re not leads you to say, “Oh, I can do this later. I can do this later. I’m going to do whatever now” and then you got to cram all of it together at the end. Or sometimes can be the opposite where you’re constantly working but you leave no time to really relax and think about yourself. If you can create a schedule for yourself: at this time on weekdays, I’m going to catch up on my homework, catch up on all assignments, studying for tests and everything like that, and a couple times in the weekend, but during these times on Saturday, these times on Sunday or maybe these times on Friday night, I’m going to take a break from school. Budgeting your time like that, I think is not only important for school life, but it’s important for the future. If you can budget your time and stick to that and develop that routine it’s really going to help you mentally. And if you feel like you’re having too much free time or you’re having too little free time you can adjust that. But it’s better than having no structure because most people who just kind of do it off the whim, off random bursts of motivation (and I am there sometimes) it doesn’t really work out well in the end. Those deadlines are going to hit, that burst is going to hit you and you’re going to feel the need to do everything at once. So I think that’s the type of structure that students should be using for school life.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. That’s a huge one. Whether it be mental health support, whether it be support on your academics, support on your social life, don’t be afraid to say: “I can’t do this on my own. I’m trying to balance all these things. I need help.” That’s something I’m challenged with but I know I’ve talked to a lot of students and they are as well. There definitely is a stigma around going and saying I can’t do this or I can’t handle this. What can I do? Utilize school psychologists, social workers, counselors, family, trusted adults and everything like that. Feel free to reach out because I’m telling you, they can offer some good support. Oftentimes, you may be nervous to access it but I think that to develop that balance in school life, and kind of home life and everything like that: Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

What issues do students find important that aren’t being discussed by MCPS, the BOE and the county at large?

There’s a lot of these. I think you can look at the middle school students in particular when talking about these. There are meaningful things that middle school students advocate for that are seen as kind of unnecessary by adults. So one of them off the top of my head that has gotten me a lot of support is school lunches. I testified to the board about school lunches and I feel like when adults and officials hear about that they kind of roll their eyes and say, “Yeah, you know, as long as you’re getting the food, you’re getting the food.” It’s really not about that. One of the biggest things is getting Halal, kosher, and vegan options on our menus. Huge, very important. I feel like we still have not reached that diversity. And we’re not even close. I know the vegan option at some of our schools is like lettuce and carrots thrown with ranch in a plastic container and given to students. That’s not that’s not good. We need that. Something I did was I held a taste testing event in my school that I organized. We had these vegan barbecue chicken nuggets, no meat at all, but that’s a better vegan option that I think is going to help vegan students feel more involved, accepted in the community because they’re not eating a salad while everyone else is enjoying our typical type of meal. I think student taste testing is really important. I don’t understand how you could get meals out to students without getting their active input on those meals because students have a lot to say and we need to be giving them the opportunity to have that directive. That’s why at the taste testing event that I held students were given this packet with a survey that said stuff like “What do you think of the options you ate? What things would you like to see more of? What things would you like to see less of that are currently on the menu?” Asking questions like that is a necessity.

I also think the general quality of food. This one’s important because I’ve heard different things from different schools. Some students say I kind of like our school lunches I don’t think they’re bad here, while others at certain schools are saying our food is expired. Things are moldy or the expiration date on the milk is passed. It’s completely tasteless, or it’s actually disgusting to eat. And the fact that the county is not hearing this is terrible because some schools are literally having unhealthy and even dangerous meals for their students while others are okay. We need to be getting that data and reevaluating what’s going on in those cafeterias. For some students the school lunch is the largest meal that they get in a day. And if that meal was not adequate, it’s not adequate for that students personal home life but even for the students that do get to eat outside of it, that’s really the only meal they get for that seven hour day.

Something for me personally is I used to eat the school lunch every single day when it was free during COVID and I felt really tired and sluggish. I thought it was maybe I wasn’t getting enough sleep or something. One time I went to Chipotle and I got this really packed bowl. Right after lunch, went back to school, I felt full of energy and I noticed an immediately difference. I tested it by eating one or the other and I realized wow, the food I was eating in the cafeterias was so lacking of nutrition that I was not getting the necessary energy. I could not focus in class and I was falling asleep. I don’t eat breakfast because I don’t have time to and I realized that there was a direct link between what I was eating in those school lunches and my attention and focus in classes. So a lot of adults I feel see it as “Oh these kids just want better food bla bla bla.” No. We need more nutritious foods that also are better tasting because you can get both it’s possible. I even rallied at the lawyers mall by the state house to get free breakfast and lunches back. The budget is tight this year for Maryland so I don’t think we’re gonna get it this year, but definitely in the future years. I think that some students like myself, we don’t necessarily qualify for free and reduced meals or we don’t necessarily need it as much and we don’t want to take that opportunity away. But at the same time, it’s not easy for us to kind of pack these meals every night and it wasn’t easy for me. I went maybe three, four months without eating a lunch nor breakfast this year, especially running the campaign, which was tough. That’s definitely a big thing.

Another issue that I think a lot of adults see as niche but I think is important is Internet access freedom. This is something that I think MCPS is kind of going in the wrong direction. They’re blocking absolutely every single website they can. When I launched my website, Sammy for SMOB was blocked on MCPS devices. I think this is terrible because there’s a lot of apps like GitHub is a good example which is great for students in computer science classes who want to get the extra edge they want to use it. Or YouTube. When I was in middle school, we used YouTube all the time for documentaries, for educational videos, teachers would attach a link in an assignment and they’d say go watch this video. And we would do that and then they blocked it. And teachers were getting super super bothered because they can no longer use this great, fantastic educational service that was restricted anyways. You can’t even go and watch bad content because it’s heavily restricted already. Why do we need to block YouTube? What is the purpose? I think that with with internet freedom, if teachers are making sure that their classes are only using their devices at appropriate times, and ensuring that they are only using when they’re allowed to use their devices, just monitoring it at the most basic level, we wouldn’t really have this problem. But what I’m noticing is by them blocking things like YouTube students are just going on more dangerous websites. Students even at my recent school visits have said “Hey I can watch YouTube, look.” And they show me these really sketchy websites that have inappropriate advertisements that our ad blockers can’t really reach. They have risk of maybe getting malware and or just more shady content. They’re using these websites for the same content or worse content because they can watch any video they want without restriction. So I say instead of blocking everything that students are just going to find their way around it, how about we incorporate that into lessons. Something that’s a little more controversial, but I fully support is the unblocking of something like Cool Math Games. Cool Math Games is really an educational gaming service. A lot of the games have you have to solve an equation and you can kind of move on to the next level. I don’t think it’s necessary for high school, obviously, but for middle school, especially like sixth grade students: Why not teach algebra through some of these games because they have algebra games and you can engage students. By blocking it. Students are spending all of their time (and trust me, I was one of the students) trying to find small websites, Google Sites, everything that can’t be blocked, that can’t be detected. And playing those games on way more shady websites that are collecting information, everything like that. Why don’t we just incorporate that into lessons? I’m telling you, even if students are using those gaming services it’s still going to be a lot more beneficial than the ones going on shady websites and trying to find their way around. And I know some students have found ways I think like through certain methods, where the county can’t block it, because of the way it’s formatted. They can’t really detect it and now students are just playing even worse games that have no educational value whatsoever. So I think unblocking these things is a big thing. I’m big on that but I don’t think that MCPS officials nor adults really care for it. But I think it’s more important than a lot of students think. I’ve talked to middle school students I’ve said that’s what they I’m going to aim to do. Obviously I doubt the action is going to be taken but that’s one of my goals. I am going to talk to MCPS about it and I’ve gotten so much support off for doing that. And Yosef even included that on his ballot point was more internet freedom and access. So I’m telling you it’s a big issue. But I think that it is greatly overlooked.

So I think school lunches and internet freedom are one of those things as well as just you know allowing students to use phones at launch. I am a big supporter of that. I don’t know why during their free period where they’re eating and there’s no distraction going on, Students can’t use their phones. Not to mention that that only makes them want to use it more in class because when you can’t have a time to check your texts, respond, watch videos, you’re going to get antsy and you’re going to use it throughout the day. It’s common sense. Some schools like my home school, Julius West with 1300 students have a free phone policy at lunch. They’re allowed to use it. I see no problems. I talked to the principal. He said how many schools have this policy because it’s working great for us and I said barely any that I’ve been to. So those kinds of things I think the county doesn’t see as important but I think it matters a lot more than they think to middle school students.

What do you think the student viewpoint on how MCPS is handling learning loss? Do students perceive they’ve experienced learning loss?  Do they care?

When you look at the data about learning loss, if I’m correct, I think it was the biggest gap for seventh grade students or something around there. I know that when you look also at Elementary, there was a there was a huge gap like fourth grade students nationwide. I think in Montgomery County it’s a little bit a little bit different. I think that with high school students, the learning loss is definitely there. But I think being a high school student, being able to catch up and be consciously aware of what you lost and what you need to make up and being conscious of “Oh, these are my test scores” and everything like that it makes it so that high school students are not necessarily the priority. Not students going into high school. That’s very different from people who are already attending 11th graders you know, like myself. I think that we’re conscious of what we needed to catch up on so we can kind of do that ourselves. But I will say still with high school students a lot of them acknowledge not necessarily learning loss, but loss of habit. A lot of them got very comfortable with less work, less time management, always being at home and always being able to budget your time rather than being in school. A lot of them said I can’t focus in school nearly as much. So it’s kind of habits along with social interaction along with that isolation that kind of destroyed that. That’s really something that I think high school students lost.

When it comes to middle school students, I definitely think that there was learning loss. I don’t know how aware or conscious students really are of it. But just from the conversations I’ve had with students going into high school, I don’t want them to say “Oh, I barely remember the math classes in particular that I learned over COVID I barely remember that information. And I feel like I don’t have the adequate prerequisites for the classes I’m taking now” The math focus is always building off the last one, especially when you look at like Algebra two to Pre Calculus they build off of each other. And if you miss one of the prerequisites you lose that first step to your next goal. So I think that’s definitely difficult. I think students are generally conscious of it. But I do think students are far more conscious about not necessarily the information they lost over COVID but the habits and routines they lost that affects how they learn information. I can’t speak to elementary and middle school students as much, but I can say the reason I can’t speak to it is because they don’t talk about it as much. The main thing they talked about is a loss of social interaction, and returning to just norms in general. That’s really what they feel like they’ve lost.

Trying to address that learning loss definitely still should be a big priority. And I think that the county is taking tangible steps. I’m on the Montgomery County Commission on Youth and Children. Right now we’re actually having people come in as experts. I’m trying to get one of the special education directors in my school has been in special education for 20 years to show the effects of COVID learning loss on ESOL programs and special education programs. That’s something we’re actively trying to do now. So we’re trying to get an evaluation of the situation, which once we conduct those interviews, and keep having those meetings, I’m going to get to know the problem a lot more. I’m going to be able to speak to that more. But right now, I don’t think students are nearly as cognizant of that as they are other issues. Especially now that a lot of students feel more ingrained in the system, it’s definitely not as big as a problem as we’ve seen before and we’re definitely helping out with it. But I think it still should be a priority for MCPS.

What role do you think parents should have in MCPS related issues?

That’s definitely a hard question coming from someone who’s running from for the student member of the board because I will be completely honest, me and students: We have a very different perspective on the role of parents than parents do. Obviously. It’s definitely clear that parents are responsible for their children, they’re responsible for what their children are doing and learning and everything like that and definitely more responsible for the behavioral aspects of your children, rather than any other thing. What I’m hearing from students certainly is they want to feel more independent and responsible. And I know that one thing that I think has kind of been an overstep by parents is with LGBTQ+ education. There’s definitely a push for an opt out option right now. Full disagreement of that. I know that’s not from parents in general. That’s from a small group. So I’m not trying to say this is all parents, but I think that’s definitely something I don’t think parents should be able to opt their children out of is learning about, different kind of non traditional conforming areas. Whether it be gender, or sexuality, anything like that. As long as it’s obviously not overstepping I think that’s necessary education for children. And I think that it’s not necessarily a parent’s choice to to be able to determine whether their children are learning about this or not, because as we know, in elementary schools, they’re learning very basic things. That aren’t going in depth. I think that sometimes it’s not necessarily the role of the parent to be able to tell the school board that they can’t teach about things that the parent finds personally offensive, because I don’t think that’s their role.

But generally, I think parents should have more of a say on boundaries, and things of that nature and busing. I think that’s perfectly fair. Like you said, when you were in school, you had to be bused to completely different areas and you had to be offset with friendships and everything like that. I saw a lot of parents testifying about that at the hearing as well about the importance of staying in that kind of line. A lot of students don’t feel as strongly about that. I ask students like, who have changed schools multiple times and been separated from their friends and they say, I think that you’re going to have losses when it comes to equity. And I think that’s one of them that hasn’t bothered me that much personally, and I thought that was interesting. I think that parents should have a say in if they want their kid bus somewhere else or anything like that. I think that’s perfectly reasonable. I think that it needs to be a two way discussion, though. But I definitely do think parents should be involved more in that.

But when it comes to kind of more general things, like wellness days and homework free weekends, that should really be the students leading that discussion. I want to come to advocacy that should be the students leading that discussion and when it really comes to those firsthand things students are saying in school about bullying or hatred, or anything like that. That should be a student led discussion, and I think parents should be listening to students and that should be the role that they’re playing. But of course, I can honestly say that, this is obviously going to come from a somewhat somewhat biased perspective. Maybe if I become a parent in the future, my opinions may change completely. But I think that students should have the biggest role in determining what mental health services are available to them, what they want to see in their curriculum, they want to learn in the curriculums, what they want their leadership organizations to look like, and the freedom around that. I think should be student led. And I think that students should be playing more of role than parents within that. Of course, as a student representative, I’m gonna push for that perspective.

What is the most pressing issue at your school and how do you think that differs from schools in other parts of the county?

Fantastic question. Being a Richard Montgomery student we’re going to we’re not going to have the huge problems are that you’re seeing in other schools, but I do think we have a couple that are big and are very important. One is safety. Definitely recently, I know you’ve heard about the fact that firearms were brought on campus multiple times just a few months ago, very close together. Something that not a lot of people know is when that student (who was a former student, so they didn’t go to Richard Montgomery anymore) came to our school with a gun on them and the security guards found them and kicked them out and everything, they were walking through our hallways. I was walking through the hallways at the exact same time. One point I was just a few feet away. I didn’t come in contact with them, but I was just a few feet away in another part of the hallway while they were walking around with what I believe was a firearm in their backpack. That’s crazy. That’s absolutely insane. No school should have to deal with this, with the fact that we had students from other schools coming on multiple occasions where we had to go on lockdown. One lockdown happened actually when I had just been on a school visit. I come back to hear our schools on lockdown. I circled the area in my car and seeing all the police was just crazy. We had to introduce a bunch of new policies, locking doors, every single student has to show ID at the front of the door. That’s definitely something is kind of not necessarily unique to RM but right now, I think it’s definitely something that’s the most pressing in our school. Luckily, it’s been mediated. I think that these policies have been working. That’s definitely a big thing.

I know outside of that, our schools generally decent in terms of any sort of issues, but I know that locking open bathroom doors which is the policy many schools were pursuing was definitely fought against by the student population. I think rightfully so because it’s an area of privacy. A big thing that I always say, is I feel like Arab students are often ignored when making policy decisions. And this was an example of that because Arab women who wanted to adjust their hijabs in the mirror, which they usually did, couldn’t anymore because someone could walk by and see and that’s a violation of the rules of the Koran. And so that’s just one example of how that group got ignored. They were very angry because they said, sometimes it slips and I need to adjust in the mirror and I can’t do that anymore because people can walk in and see me in the bathroom in my kind of private space, which I think was a huge problem. Now we’ve kind of dealt with that by putting the mirrors in the handicap stall at the end. Where no one can see you. But I still think that these kinds of policies are not the right direction.

The big reason they were doing it was students were using drugs in the bathroom but what I say is okay, you’ve locked the bathroom doors open, are the kids gonna rehabilitate themselves? No, what they’re gonna do is they’re gonna continue using drugs now off school ground, or somewhere where they have no chance of getting that help. Or somewhere a lot more dangerous and a lot more sketchy. At least when it’s in school, and maybe a guard can come into the bathroom and see who’s doing it, we could help them get that services they need but now all you’ve done is taken a problem and moved it to somewhere where it can’t be moderated. And that’s not a solution by any means. And for all the students that wanted that private area just to relax or anything like that no longer have it, which I think is completely unfair because I can tell you most of the time you walk in the bathroom, it’s perfectly fine, even when they were closed. So I think that’s a policy that a lot of students were against, as well as last year was locking bathroom doors, which I know is definitely something that was a big problem. I think it’s administrative policies like that, that students really don’t appreciate.

With the new attendance policy we actually didn’t get much pushback, but I know a student just came to me recently and said, I lost my ID a couple of times, not just my ID, but my wallet was stolen. And the ID was in there and I lost it. And they gave me a temporary one at the beginning but that they lost access to that as well. And then they forced them to try and pay for a new ID. But they said I can’t really cover the charges. And now it comes to where a student may not be let in the building because they can’t pay for something that could just be given to them. Like we all get our IDs printed for free. And then we’re saying, it’s great we have this ID policy, but we need to reevaluate how we’re kind of distributing that. If someone loses their ID a couple times they shouldn’t have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a new one. No, that that should not be the policy. So I know Richard Montgomery specifically was kind of centered other than the huge safety incidents that we had. That was kind of a way bigger thing. But outside of that, I think it’s about like administrative policies and everything like that and all that kind of stuff. I think that that differs from other schools and that you’re gonna see a lot more big general issues like you know, fights and drug use is a lot more common in some other schools, as well as racism, or homophobia. I think Richard Montgomery is very good at when that situation happens, which it does, it gets reported and dealt with quite swiftly because we have a very active student population, while other schools that may not be the same way. I’ve heard cases of sexual assaults, of negative comments towards students in a number of schools. So I think that’s kind of generally how it differs at Richard Montgomery. But I think that those safety concerns really still one of the biggest things that we’re still recovering from this community.

Short questions

Do you support reinstating final exams?

No. I’ve gotten this question asked and it may be different than a lot of adults.

My reasoning quick off the cuff is a couple things. First, the idea of final exams in general was students are going to budget their time throughout the year study for it, retain information, it’s going to help them. That does not happen. I think it’s a fantasy. What ends up happening is because of a lot of things students are balancing, they’re not balancing studying for that final exam. They forget things. How would you expect students that are taking seven classes, several things, extracurriculars, home life, the social life, to balance every single class? What happens is that week or that final exam, they get super stressed out, their mental health worsens, they’re trying to study. They failed their other tests because they’re studying for this big final, super stressed. Maybe they still get a bad score on there. Now their overall grade is screwed, their mental health worsens. It’s not a good system. A lot of people say it’s good for college prep and everything like that. One, not every student goes for college. I’m a huge believer in college and career readiness, but that end is important. You cannot just be thinking you’re funneling every student to college, because there are great careers that pay well, that are successful that you don’t require college and a lot of students in the nation as a whole are moving away from college and moving towards entrepreneurship. I know that a lot of young people, I think the most in history are opening new businesses now. That’s a fantastic thing. You should not just keep preparing students for college because not every student is going to go to college and rightfully so. As well as the fact that I think teaching different types of skills that you don’t need a final exam for are more effective ways to prepare them for college than getting them final exams in high school. It’s not beneficial for mental health. It’s not beneficial for actual studying habits or anything like that. It just causes stress. I don’t think it has the intended benefits that they try and get. It’s just like what the administration wants vs. what actually happens. And it also disproportionately affects certain of groups of students as well and lowers their grades. Meanwhile others that have the money for tutoring and everything like that, they do better, the ones that don’t do worse. So I think that’s kind of the same thing as credit loss. So definitely don’t support final exams.

Do you favor the 50 percent rule? What are your thoughts on it?

There’s two types of the 50% rule. One is you don’t turn an assignment, you don’t even try to get 50%. The other is to make a valid attempt. So on a math test you can’t like say one plus one equals two and answer every question like that, that’s not a valid attempt, but genuinely trying. I think if you’re genuinely try and you get like one out of 10 questions right, the 50% rule is fine there. Because if a student is genuinely trying their hardest and actually putting in effort to get their grades up and they’re not cutting, it, the 50% rule is meant that if they fail a test that they’re putting effort in, it’s not going to sink their grade because the way the grading system works, that is balanced. It makes sense but it also means that you get a bunch of A’s but one zero will sync your grade from 100% to an 80-85% or something like that. You know if that zero is on a big test when you’re doing all your homework, doing all your classwork yet one zero on a test, it sinks your grade. So I think that it’s a support system for students that are genuinely putting effort to say, Okay, you didn’t do well on this, but we’re not going to sink your grades obviously it’s still going to hurt your grade at 50% it’s no great.

When it comes to 50% for something you’re not attempting, 100% don’t support it. No. And I think that actually when you talk to students, realistically you sit them down, they don’t agree with it either. Even the ones that are benefiting off that system. To me it is crazy how a student can sit there and not do work and get a 50% Because guess what? That means they barely have to do any assignments, get that 60% And they can graduate. No, it should not be that way. You should not be teaching students that you don’t have to do most of your work and you can just do it just enough to pass because what does that teach them for a future career? What does that teach them if they do want to go to college it teaches them no skills in time management, no skills in work ethic. It teaches them to do the bare minimum. When you get an actual job or a career doing the bare minimum is not going to cut it, you’re never going to be able to make a decent living for yourself doing the bare minimum. I think that’s just the case for anything. Even a job as basic as retail. I think that if a student doesn’t turn in an assignment or makes no attempt that should be a zero. You should be saying that: all we want you to do is try try your best and you know if you try your best, you’re not going to get an A or anything like that, but you will not have your grades sink. That’s the point. But if you’re not even taking that first step, we’re not going to have sympathy on you. And I am 100% of them have the belief that that 50% rule for not trying an assignment is to inflate graduation rates and to inflate grades. It’s not to help students. That’s what it is. “Wow, look, we have the highest graduation rate in the state”. Well look at the policies and you’ll find the students don’t have to do the work to get that. I think that’s completely disingenuous. It’s harming students for a title. So yes, I only support the 50% rule if if a valid attempt is made.

Do you support the science of reading?

Off the top of my head, you want to go more in depth on that. I’ve always been of a strong belief that school should not just be about memorizing information, that’s old that’s in the past. It’s about learning critical thinking and analyzing patterns. That’s needed to teach students how to effectively learn, how to effectively think, not what to think because that was a system developed when you had to get your information from textbooks. That was the only way but now we have the world at our fingertips. If you need to know a certain word or you need to know how high Mount Everest is or anything like that, you can find it. But you need to learn how to find that information, how to utilize and understand that information. So I think if that’s kind of what that’s about, we need to be moving in the new direction of analyzation, pattern recognition and everything like that rather than flashcards.

Do you support a required financial literacy course?

Yes, that’s actually something I’m fighting for on the Commission of youth and children. We have two sections. One of them is on trying to recover from learning loss but the section that we’re doing in particular is trying to get a financial literacy course in MCPS. So I 100% support it. I think it’s something that students admit they don’t want to learn but they need to them. Budgeting, taxes, investing, these are necessary skills. The biggest critique of the school system that I have the one of the most long lasting is they teach us the Pythagoras theorem, they teach us all these things, but they don’t even teach us how to how to do our taxes. I think that’s completely valid. Students need to be learning this information. I think just one semester is enough, as long as you’re developing an engaging and necessary curriculum because I know other counties have it like Charles County as an example, but it’s very boring and inefficient. You need to be engaging and applicable to the real world to get students heads lifted from their desks and then that’s the most efficient way to implement that, but just a semester, I think is enough time.

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