‘We deserve a voice’: Boise High student will run for district school board seat
Shiva Rajbhandari describes himself as a student leader.
He has advocated for climate education. He’s spoken out publicly against elected officials who made claims of indoctrination and critical race theory in Idaho’s K-12 schools. And he’s pushed the Boise School District to adopt a clean energy commitment.
But over the past few years, he said he’s felt like he and other students were treated like their voices didn’t matter. So several months ago, he had an idea.
Rajbhandari, an incoming Boise High School senior, plans to run in the Sept. 6 election to serve on the Boise School District’s board of trustees. He will turn 18 in August, making him eligible for the position.
A district spokesperson told the Idaho Statesman there is no record of a student ever being elected to serve on the board.
“As students, we deserve a voice in how our schools are run,” Rajbhandari told the Statesman. “And I think that we can bring a really unique perspective to the decision making.”
Student applies for Boise school board seat
Rajbhandari will be running for the position held by Trustee Steve Schmidt, who was appointed to the board in December and plans to run to hold the seat.
The incoming high school senior said he plans to serve the remaining two years of the six-year term, even after he graduates, if he is elected, and also said he hopes he can get the board to have a permanent student position.
Appointed board members must run for their seats the next election. Five trustee positions are on the ballot in the Boise School District election on Sept. 6, and three of those races are because of resignations that have happened since the district’s last election, in September 2020. People have until July 8 to submit a declaration of candidacy.
Rajbhandari said he decided to run for the role, in part, because he had been trying to connect with board members as he pushed for the district to approve and implement a long-term sustainability commitment, and he was struggling to get responses.
Then in November, another student applied for an open school board position after a former trustee resigned from the role. Lizzy Duke-Moe, then a senior at Boise High School, previously told the Statesman she felt the board was out of touch with what was happening in schools.
Trustees didn’t grant her an interview for the appointed position, but she has continued to work with board members to advocate for students to have a say on the board.
The district is now working to create a student advisory committee “to increase student engagement” with the district and school board, according to a document included in the board meeting’s agenda. Duke-Moe, who has been working with the board to create the committee, said it will include students from each high school and will be an impactful and lasting way for many students to have their voices heard.
She said she is not supporting a specific candidate in the race, but is continuing to focus on creating a “long-term commitment to student voices.”
Rajbhandari said that after Duke-Moe applied, he became interested in what voters would say.
Trustee says board member needs experience
Board president Dave Wagers said it’s “very important” to listen to student voices, but he has some reservations about a student candidate.
Wagers said trustees need time to understand how the school district functions and make the best decisions for all stakeholders. He expressed concerns that a student may not be able to commit to the position for the long term.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being an effective trustee after 15 years of serving on school boards, it is that it takes time and experience,” he said in an email to the Statesman. “The Boise School District is a very complex public entity with a budget of $391 million and over 4,000 employees.”
Wagers said the board has been intentional in listening to students, through actions including putting together focus groups and hearing reports from student government representatives at its meetings.
Schmidt said his priority in the role is to help the district “make thoughtful, well-informed decisions.” After serving on the board for more than six months, he said he feels like he is in a good position to do that.
“I want every student to have a high-quality education, a safe place to learn, and great teachers,” he said in an email. “Regardless of who else chooses to run, I’m looking forward to the conversation about how we can improve so we continue to be one of the best school districts in the country.”
Rajbhandari says past leadership prepared him for role
Rajbhandari said he feels qualified for the position after serving as a leader across multiple student groups and advocating for issues that impact students. He served as ASB vice president at Boise High, started the Green Club and has testified before legislators on climate education. He’s also helped register Idaho residents to vote through the organization Babe Vote, he said.
“A lot of community members see me as a voice for students, which is something that I really honor. … Certainly, I’m not the only voice for students, I think every student should have their own voice,” he said. “But I think that puts me in a very unique position.”
He said he wants to upend the status quo, and demonstrate the importance of listening to student voices. He also wants to push to increase voter turnout in the election.
His main concern, if he is elected, is that his voice wouldn’t be taken seriously, he said.
Sam Sandmire, treasurer for the campaign and an organizer for Reclaim Idaho, called Rajbhandari one of the smartest people she has ever met, and said she has full faith that he can take on the job.
“He’s not afraid to challenge authority, to challenge establishment,” she said. “He figures out how to make change and then he does it.”
Young people need to have a voice in every area of the government, and the school board is a great place to start, Sandmire said.
“It’s kind of ludicrous to me that students don’t currently have a voting voice in the governance of their schools, their education path,” she said.
Yvonne Shen, an incoming 10th grader at Boise High who supports his campaign, said having a student representative on the board would help improve student experiences.
Shen, who has worked with Rajbhandari on different issues through organizations including Reclaim Idaho and the Idaho Asian American Pacific Islander Youth Alliance, said it’s important the school board has diverse voices.
“Just because we’re students doesn’t mean that our opinions aren’t as valuable as adults’,” she told the Statesman. “We’re seeing the things that are happening in schools. We are seeing the direct impacts of these decisions.”
Key issues include mental health, later start times
Rajbhandari pointed to a number of issues he’d hope to advocate for if he was elected. Those included improving mental heath services in school, advocating for later start times for students and getting the district to agree to a clean energy commitment with firm timelines.
The pandemic has taken a significant toll on students’ mental health. Children’s mental health was declared a national emergency last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Children’s Hospital Association. In a statement, the groups said children and families had experienced “enormous adversity and disruption.”
Rajbhandari said schools need to do a better job of providing mental health services to students who need it.
“So many of my friends that have struggled with mental health. I struggled with mental health, especially during the COVID lockdown,” he said. “Our students are literally dying in schools. And we’re kind of like closing our eyes and pretending like nothing’s happening.”
He said he understands the district doesn’t have as much funding as those in other states, but mental health should be a priority.
He is also advocating for later school start times, a change that has been implemented in several schools across the U.S. in the last decade.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has suggested middle and high schools start after 8:30 a.m. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a lack of sleep is connected with “several health risks including being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using drugs, as well as poor academic performance.
“It would not be hard to shift the school schedule one hour later. And that’s something that parents, teachers, students, everyone agrees,” Rajbhandari said.
Rajbhandari’s other priorities include making sure students receive a climate education. He said climate studies can be incorporated into all subjects and across all grades.
“My generation agrees that climate change is the most important issue facing our planet, facing humanity,” he said. “And schools need to prepare us for that.”
He wants to craft a long-term sustainability plan for the district, a plan he said would save the district a significant amount of money on its energy bill it could use for other issues. That can include actions like installing solar panels and switching to electric school buses, he said. He wants to expedite the process, make it more transparent and involve more community voices, he said.
The district passed a clean energy commitment in November that laid out a number of steps the district would take to create “healthier, more environmentally sustainable schools.” But students who have been fighting for a clean energy resolution said they wished trustees had put forth a clearer timeline and had listened more to student voices.
U.S. school districts have student positions
The idea of a student serving on a school board is not unprecedented. The National School Boards Association found of the 495 largest school districts in the country, about 14% had at least one student board member as of January 2021.
But those are designated positions for students. It’s unclear whether a student has successfully run a campaign before to be elected to a school board.
Rajbhandari said he knows he won’t be the last student to run for the school board. He hopes his decision to run will show students how important their perspectives are.
“I think it says that our voice matters, and that we are constituents just like anybody else,” he said. “And we belong at every place where decisions are being made, but especially where decisions are being made about our education.”
Going forward, he said he plans to knock on doors, share his platform and encourage more people to vote in the election.
Sandmire remembered the first time she met Rajbhandari, when he came to a “huddle” at her house after the Women’s March in 2017. Organizers were discussing the actions they could take, throwing out suggestions — like sending postcards to former President Donald Trump and telling him to resign.
But then Rajbhandari spoke up.
“He said, ‘You know, isn’t there a school levy or bond in three weeks? I’d really like to have my education funded,’” she said. “And every eye in the room just turned and focused on this 12-year-old kid who just really schooled us on how to really take impactful actions.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
