There has been little awareness among students about the campaign for Student Member of the Board of Education between the two candidates, Nate Tinbite, a junior at John F. Kennedy High School, and Zoe Tishaev, a junior at Clarksburg High School.
The Student Member of the Board (SMOB) is a full voting member and the only student voice on the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE), which is directly responsible for all education-related issues in Montgomery County, including oversight and funding of the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) system. In fact, Montgomery County is one of only two counties in Maryland to grant their SMOB full voting rights.
The SMOB has played an instrumental role in the past, most recently with SMOB Ananya Tadikonda proposing and passing a resolution to study Montgomery County school boundaries. It is believed to be the first comprehensive look at school boundaries, which have been widely considered to create de-facto segregation in Montgomery County. The study’s findings will be presented in spring 2020.
The MoCo Student interviewed both candidates to get a sense of their priorities and policies.
Tishaev is a first-generation American. Her parents are from different parts of the former Soviet Union—her father from Russia, and her mother from the Ukraine. They met up in New York, when her mother was 15 and her father in his early 20s. Tishaev was born in New York. Her parents later split; her mother first moved to New York, then back to Bethesda. Tishaev stayed in Germantown with her father.
She says that she was partly motivated to run by her parents’ “lower-end economic status and background in the USSR.” Tishaev pointed out that her mom did not go to college because she got poor grades in the MCPS school system as her English was “bad.” She sees her main motivation for running as the disconnect between students and the SMOB as well as the lack of communication between the two. She hopes to eliminate barriers between students and the SMOB.
Tinbite’s parents are from Ethiopia. His family impressed upon him the power of the masses to change the world. He has seen through personal experience and conversations that all students, at the end of the day, just want a “better and greater education system.” He says he got engaged in student advocacy when he saw the struggles ESOL students were going through.
Tinbite said, “I just wanted to see how they can better advance their program. They needed a staunch voice for those communities to make sure that they’re represented in many discussions as well.”
He was motivated to run for SMOB because he presents a new perspective.
“My perspective is a student that understands how it feels to actually be a student [with] poor infrastructure, outdated technology, and many things that would not help the normal student. I’m running because I hope that we can bridge this economic barrier present in our schools and bridge the opportunity gap that continues to widen,” said Tinbite.
Tinbite is also a founding member of MoCo Students for Gun Control (now MoCo for Change), which organized the walkouts for gun control both this year and last year, and was instrumental in passing the aforementioned boundary study. If elected, he plans to step away from the organization’s leadership.
The candidates have quite similar backgrounds in regional government. Tinbite and Tishaev have been involved in student activism since 8th grade. Tishaev is a relative newcomer to the county-wide SGA (MCR-SGA)—she only entered into it in 10th grade. She told The MoCo Student she didn’t know about it until last year. Tinbite entered into the county-wide SGA four years ago, and served as chief of staff to SMOB Matt Post in the 2017-18 school year.
A Question of Priorities
The candidates don’t diverge much in terms of policy; both candidates stressed that the main difference lies in prioritization of policies.
Nate Tinbite stated that his biggest priority was eliminating inequality. “The main message of my campaign is that the ZIP code of your school shouldn’t determine the quality of your education. That’s exactly why I’m running,” he said.
Tishaev said, “Communication is my number one priority. I will consistently be visiting all middle and high schools, to make sure that no matter where we are in the political process, no matter how far we’ve gotten with the BOE on improving our initiatives; I need to make sure that you’re always aware of where we stand—That transparency is key during my term.”
Technology
Both candidates have stressed the importance of unblocking the WiFi in order for high school and middle school students to be able to access their social media accounts. They have different ways of tackling the issue.
Tishaev advocates for a new approach in order to ensure these rights. Tishaev stated that the other Board members don’t feel a personal connection to the issue. “They’d rather leave up to the schools,” Tisheav said.
Her plan advocates for negotiation with every school to get these rights. “ [One has to] work with school [administrations] to get to the root of why specifically at school, they’re not allowed—it varies based on what school you go,” Tishaev said.
Tinbite shares the concern with Tishaev but plans to tackle the issue by adding a clause to the Student Rights and Responsibilities handbook that allows all middle and high school students to use their phones at lunch.
Tishaev criticized this approach, saying that his proposal would not work. “The other members of the Board of Education don’t really care about cell phones at lunch. That’s not something that’s of interest to them. So they’re not going to vote to have an amendment to the student rights and responsibilities,” she said.
Tishaev and Tinbite advocate for each MCPS student to be issued a Chromebook, which would, according to Tishaev, avoid broken technology as each student is “taking care of their own tech.”
Communication
Tinbite plans to visit every middle and high school before his election and “frequently” visit all middle and high schools throughout his tenure. At the time of publication, he said he had visited “almost all” schools, but did not give specific numbers.
He plans to expand online communication through monthly Q&A Sessions on Instagram, create a podcast that addresses education issues, remain easily contactable through various social media platforms, and require that schools show the SMOB minute during their morning announcements.
Tinbite plans to overhaul the SMOB Advisory Council by creating a Student Advisory Council within it. The Student Advisory Council will report to the superintendent, and its members will be allocated based on school population. Tinbite plans to make the SMOB Advisory Council “reflective of the student body and every school” and try to recruit more students to join it.
Tishaev has made communication a huge part of her platform—she says that the lack of communication between the SMOB and students was a big part of her deciding to run for SMOB. Tishaev has visited all 65 middle and high schools, and plans to return to make “constant” visits if elected.
She wants to form a network of SGA contacts to get an idea of public opinion around the county and pledges to hold SMOB Advisory Council meetings across the county, not just in Rockville. She wants the SMOB minute to be played at every middle and high school, twice a month.
Infrastructure
Both candidates pledge to deliver renovations to the schools that are currently waiting. Currently, Damascus, Poolesville, Magruder, Wooton, and Northwood High School are listed for rebuilding in the Capital Improvements Plan, along with Neelsville Middle School, and Burnt Mills, South Lake, Stone Gate, and Woodlin Elementary School.
Tinbite outlined his suggested process for making sure MCPS follows through on their promise to rebuild schools to The MoCo Student: Tinbite plans to “testify before the [Montgomery] County Council, along with other student leaders and this county for many high schools and middle schools that feel that their infrastructure is not as good as it can be.”
Tishaev outlined similar steps. “The next step is to make sure MCPS follows through in these promises and fully funds the request [for school rebuilding] and then testifying in front of the Montgomery County Council to ensure that money is delivered,” Tishaev said. She suggested that MCPS prioritize the schools that were “falling apart” in the Plan.
Opportunity Gap
During the 2015-16 school year, a study was conducted by the US Department of Education that found that hispanic and black students were, on average, three grade levels behind their white peers in terms of academic performance. MCPS has tried to tackle the issue with 5 “core strategies”: Academic Rigor and Culturally Proficient Instruction, Equitable Funding and Support, Human Capital Management, Community Engagement, as well as Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement. Yet the opportunity gap, or as MCPS refers to it, achievement gap, persists.
The candidates have similar approaches to addressing the issue. Both Tishaev and Tinbite want to expand the Chromebook rental program and expand the Minority Scholars Program to all MCPS schools.
They generally agree on the need to expand ACES, the Achieving Excellence and Success Program, to schools, but have slightly different approaches: Tishaev wants to expand ACES first to the schools that need it most, while Tinbite wants to expand it to all schools.
Tishaev commented that her distinction is important and thought taking a broad view of the program by immediately expanding it to all schools would not be effective. “Right now, we need to make sure that we’re expanding where the achievement gap is most prevalent,” Tisheav said on her website.
Tinbite plans to “place an emphasis” on quantitative literacy classes. “Not every student will go to college, and it’s on us to make sure that every student is prepared for financial success now and in the future,” Tinbite said on his website. He further plans to expand drivers ed back to schools for 10th through 12th graders.
Tishaev plans to expand and improve the ESOL, English for Speakers of other Languages, a program she called “severely dysfunctional at several schools” on her website. She also plans to hire more ESOL teachers. Tishaev wrote on her website, “We will push to hire more ESOL teachers and make sure that they speak the language they are teaching, which is all too often not the case.” She further plans to expand Pre-K programs, but didn’t have any specifics ready. Tinbite plans to expand Pre-K by allocating funds from the MCPS operating budget.
Continue reading Part 2 here
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Joel Lev-Tov of Springbrook High School
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