Sunil's Priorities |
Recovering from Covid-19 Losses
The COVID-19 crisis has brought increased student needs and budget constraints at the same time. If we want to reopen schools and have them be effective centers of learning, we must ensure that schools are adequately funded to support social distancing and other safety measures as well as new technologies and innovative practices. We will also have to change old ways of doing things and make hard choices. But to do this will require the BOE will need to communicate clearly with and bring along families, students, teachers, and staff. Sunil's response to MCPS Draft Plan for Fall 2020.
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Fighting for
equitable schools The pandemic laid bare persistent inequities and powerful testimonies in the blackat* and survivorat* Instagram accounts demand action. We need an inclusive curriculum, diverse teachers and administrators, and a culture that does not discriminate. We need consent education and meaningful reporting channels. In the long-term, we need to ensure equitable distribution of resources, including a policy of systemwide, regular, and predictable boundary review and adjustment. We need more than words. We are past due on action.
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Supporting Mental Health & Well-being
MCPS students have been reporting a gathering mental health crisis for a few years now. The dislocation caused by the coronavirus-led school closure added to stress and anxiety in many families. Students with IEPs are among the most-impacted. At this time, it will be more important than ever before for our students to learn how to be resilient, flexible, and empathetic and for our teaching to reflect support for youth mental health, even as a prerequisite for academic performance.
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Academic Recovery Plan
We have to do much better in responding to the pandemic. Distance learning did not work in the Spring, but it was better in the Summer. The Fall, however, looks very difficult. Sunil has taught online for years and knows what it will take to bring MCPS to this new era. He has also proposed a practical equity-driven school building reopening plan. Read more here: Fixing Distance Learning Governor says to reopen schools, what's the plan? |
Aim for Excellence Plan
Sunil isn't running for the Board of Education because he thinks everything is broken; he's running to take what's working in our school system and make it excellent. To read more about Sunil's plans for special education, pre-k, environmental education and climate change, cultivating student journalism, and magnet program screening, please take a look at Sunil's Aim for Excellence plan |
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School boundaries were a lightning rod in the primary elections in June 2020. The results of the at-large and District 4 races show that Montgomery County residents overwhelmingly support the idea of change, even if we don’t agree on the specifics of what those changes ought to be. In 2019, there were 10,860 students overcrowded in about 100 of our schools and 9,357 open seats in the other half of MCPS schools. While not all those empty seats can be filled with students at overcrowded schools, a significant number can be, and school assignments in the future must keep abreast with population and demographic changes.
What we need going forward is a specific plan around which to coalesce. I was the only candidate in the primary—and now the only candidate in the general—who has provided specific solutions for dealing with overcrowding and under-enrollment and to address the problem into the future. The question now is whether we allow change to be forced upon us or we come together as a county to push for a predictable, reasonable, and fair way to move forward. Learn more: What should a new school boundary policy look like? |
To have long-term impact on inequity, we not only have to address curriculum, staff, and services, but also develop a policy instrument that allows greater balance between schools. A regular, systemwide, and transparent boundary review and adjustment policy will not solve all equity problems, but without it the impact of other measures will erode over time. |
Sunil offers public comments about school boundaries at the January 9, 2020 MCPS Board of Education meeting.
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