Campaign email: contact@samaykindra.org
Website: www.samaykindra.org
Facebook: facebook.com/samaysinghkindra.org
Age: 24
Employment: Law Student, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Education: Bachelor’s degree, International Business, University of Maryland, College Park
Why are you running for the school board?
As a lifelong Baltimore County resident, community activist, and product of K-12 BCPS education, I know our community and our schools firsthand. I have been active in our community since high school, and I am committed to the advancement of my community. I have a unique and valuable perspective to bring to the board as a Sikh-Indian American who graduated from BCPS in the recent past and is now a young professional. My recent matriculation through the BCPS system allows me to understand problems from a firsthand perspective. Through my diverse background and commitment to my community, I know I can help build a world-class education system for our students, teachers, and staff.
What makes you a good candidate for the board?
I would bring a fresh, new perspective to the school board by using my unique background to craft solutions to give every student the opportunity to succeed by charting a course for a more responsive, inclusive, and equitable education system and engaging with all our stakeholders—including teachers, staff, and parents—as we work to provide a world-class education for our students. Thus, creating my vision for Baltimore County Public Schools, where all students are successful post-graduation and are supplied with the tools to build a better future from an equitable and forward-thinking school system.
Please name a public leader you admire and explain why.
I admire former President Barack Obama because I have found inspiration in the way he broke barriers and persevered through great challenges and obstacles to achieve his goals while helping others in the process. He showed that no matter what you look like or where you come from, you can achieve your dreams even in the face of prejudice. Finally, I admire the way he stuck to the issues and policy while fighting the good fight and helping others instead of being torn down by the low-bore attacks that he faced. Everyone can look to President Obama to find an example of how one can carry themselves with grace while persevering through adversity.
What is the most important issue facing your school board, and what would you do about it if elected?
The most pressing issue within the county school system is ensuring that the school system’s primary focus is on student success after graduating, whether that is through college or other avenues. To accomplish this, we need to do everything we can to ensure Baltimore County Public Schools lives up to the promise of quality education for all by focusing on student well-being, which includes addressing financial literacy within the curriculum and providing adequate mental health education. If we teach students how to manage their wealth and their health, we are setting them up for success no matter their path.
How concerned are you about school safety, and what if anything should be done to improve it?
It should be a top priority for BCPS to ensure that all students and staff find themselves in a safe and healthy learning environment. BCPS has led Maryland in school arrests by student resource officers (SRO), with the largest arrestable offense being “disruption.” This highlights the problem of unclear delineation between situations where law enforcement intervention is appropriate and where school-based administrative procedures are appropriate. The board needs to create new, clear policies that dictate what situations are to be addressed by SROs and what offenses are to be dealt with solely by the administration and clearly communicate these changes with SROs, parents and administrations.
Do you have any concerns about the way history is taught in your district’s schools, and if so, what are they?
History must be taught in the way that it happened. We must teach our students all of our history—good parts and the bad parts. It is essential that we do so, so that we are teaching our kids how to solve the problems of today and tomorrow by learning and understanding the successes and the failures of the past. We can not shy away from issues that make us uncomfortable. It is a disservice to our students and is detrimental to their future. We should not waver in the face of challenges, we need to tackle them head-on and provide a world-class education for our students.
Do you think there are circumstances when books should be removed from school libraries, and if so, what kind of books should be removed?
Books should not be removed from schools. It is important that all views of the world are represented and available for students to learn about in an educational setting. Banning books runs the risk of compromising a student’s development and stunting their learning and curiosity about the world. Removing books is denying students the chance to understand values and ideas that may not be readily apparent in their daily lives and shying away from issues that make us uncomfortable is contradictory to the goal of setting our students up for future success.
