Rachael Maves: Hi everyone. You are listening to the Rachael Maves podcast and I'm Rachael Maves, your host. This podcast is part of the lead up to the upcoming measure what we value Summit scheduled for February 5th through 6th 2025 in Fresno, California. The summit emphasizes honoring and amplifying student voices, fostering inclusive classrooms and equipping Educators with tools for impactful change. You can find more information at parsecsummit.com. Today we are talking with Sinead Kiley.

Sinead Kiley is a high school senior and student board member for Powe Unified School District, representing over 35,000 students. She is passionate about education reform, addressing homelessness and expanding opportunities for vulnerable students. As the Western Regional strategy coordinator for the national student board member Association, she advocates for students rights na Nationwide and has worked on legislation to support student board members. Sinead hopes to pursue a future in politics to drive meaningful reform on a larger scale. Wow, Sinead, thanks for joining me today.

Sinead Kiley: Thank you, I'm glad for you to have me.

Rachael Maves: I'm really excited to jump into this conversation and hear a little bit more about I mean, really what even drove you to this idea of political stuff. But before we jump into that, I'd love for you just to tell us a little bit about yourself and I'd love to hear what brings you Joy. What do you love to do? What fills your bucket as a student?

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, so I've always been like the kid with her hand raised super high in the classroom. That's always been me. I've always been that like kind of nerdy kid. I've always been super interested in education and I felt like it was pretty well red. And as a student I love writing, love, art like those are my two passions above all else and that's always what's brought me joy. So I feel like that's kind of like.

As I've gone through my career as a student you know, first grade through 12th grade I saw changes in those classes and everything and I it just really interested me in education and everything to do with that. So that's kind of me, that's awesome.

Rachael Maves: So is that the thing that you love to do? You have any hobbies or things that you enjoy outside of that?

Sinead Kiley: I am a dancer. I love to dance, I love to paint. I feel like I'm a pretty artistic person. Not to like humble brag on myself, but yeah, those are my Outlets, yeah, that's awesome.

Rachael Maves: No, own your accomplishments. That's not a humble brag, that is owning your accomplishments, that's awesome, wonderful. My daughter is super artsy too. She, like that is her happy place. She, yeah, the world of the artistic bent yeah, that's great. Yeah, so I want to hear just a little bit from you.

What motivated you to get involved with the national student board member? Association.

Sinead Kiley: So I mean, I guess my whole journey starts with how I became a student board member in the first place, cuz that was what launched me into becoming a part of the National Association. And our school district went through pretty Rocky times last year having to do with superintendence and Scandal and transparency issues. It was a whole thing and it originated at my high school and I kind of saw these issues kind of crumbling down around me and I was thinking about how I had always been involved in, you know, community service and Leadership and my community and I thought, like this is my chance. I heard about the opportunity, I thought that this was so cool that our district was offering a space for students to be able to give input, and I had a lot of thoughts, you know, off the back of everything that had happened. So I ran and you know, obviously I was selected for the position and my predecessor said: you know, here's the contact information for the national student board member Association. They helped me with a program to get me interested in the role and as a student, remember, they kind of just throw you into the position.

There's not a lot of, there's not a lot of preparation that goes into your roller. I mean, I was. I went to my first meeting, didn't understand any of the jargon, didn't like it was difficult Financial stuff, like the budgets, the loans. It was hard to wrap my head around and I felt like the national student M Association was a place where I could really latch on to and get some of that information. And then they reached out and they said: you know, we have some leadership positions that we're looking for people to apply to. Would you be interested?

So I guess I had a pretty classic story. I just thought that for me as a student board member, I had seen the impact of what the school War had done and how my direct input could help. And they had this opportunity, this network of like 500 other student board members with all these experiences and all this legislation they were working on across California, across the whole country, and I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. You don't often times see youth groups that are so motivated to do work, especially in communities, that directly impact them and education. The constituents are the students and it was so interesting to me. I hadn't ever thought that I would become involved at a national level like that before they reached out.

But you know, obviously I applied and now here a am. So that's my journey to NSBMA. I was just really interested in all the work that they do, thought it was so cool.

Rachael Maves: That's, I mean, that's what an powerful organization it sounds like. If I'm hearing you correctly, there are two. Things that you really appreciate about it. One is the professional development, like of just what does it mean to look like to be a student Bo member. But then the second one is the community that it provides of other student board members. Can you tell me a little bit about like what does that preparation look like?

How do they come along and support you as a student board member to fully understand and embrace that role?

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, so every summer they have a Start program, St and it's you know some long acronym, but they organize the student board members who are incoming and we reach out to everyone who you know their old student board member is gone and now they're placing their role. We reach out, we provide presentations, information resources and a big thing that we have more recently this year that you know. I'm working on one right now for book Banning, which is a big topic of conversation right now and lots of student board members are grappling with it. But these information sessions where we'll reach out to as many student board members we can get them in a meeting and we'll do a presentation on various topics. We've done some on age, like age relationships between some of the older board members and how to communicate with them as a student and how to Foster professionalism in those environments just things that normal kids wouldn't be able to understand in their day-to-day. But you really need, as a student board member, skills that you need to have and be able to deal with specific issues.

So that's a big way that NSBMA has, like supported me and other student members in that regard.

Rachael Maves: I love it. What a powerful organization and how important I mean, for you as student board members and for districts if any of the district books are listening to this, if you have student board members, I highly recommend you check out this agency to provide that support, because it sounds like Sinead. What I'm hearing you say is it just give you a deeper level of preparation, confidence, to be able to really Embrace that role. I'd love to hear, I'd love to hear, how your role as a student board member has really shaped your perspective on. Education.

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, so I worked in local government for a little which is funny like I'm 17 but I had some experience with local government and I worked in constituent services, so a huge part of that was just like communicating with the people in your District. What do they want? What are they thinking? You know how are they feeling about these decisions you're making, and I looked to education and my own community and it felt like all the decisions were so separate from the people that they were affecting. As an educator, as an administrator, who are the people that your decisions are directly impacting? It is your students.

Those are your constituents, and I felt that school boards around the country didn't really handle that the way that I felt that it should be handled, and that's how it's mainly changed my perspective and NSBMA holds this. You know, obviously we share the same perspective here that students need to have a larger role in their education, because that's what it's about. It's about your constituents, it's about fostering relationships, it's about understanding how your decisions impact kids, and I remember this is just my own. As a child and I was in elementary school, I lived in a community that had a pretty large, you know, Chinese American population and there was an elementary school that was a couple elementary schools away that got this Chinese immersion program and I thought that it was so strange, even as a kid, and my parents were wondering too why they had gotten this program when our community, I felt, had so much need for a program just like that. And I feel like if there had been more connections to the student body or to the actual families that these decisions were impacting, it would have made such a difference. And I think that I mean at board meetings the public is allowed to visit, but I feel like you're not really going to reach a broad majority of people.

I mean, my district has 35,000 students, so 35,000 families, and at a board meeting we get maybe a hundred people showing up to talk about their opinions. So having student board members and student input, that's really where my perspective is now. Like you need, it's not a maybe, it's a must, because that's what representative democracy is, and at a very small level, like that's representative democracy. So that's that's my opinion on that.

Rachael Maves: I love it's such an important piece that I mean, yes, you're bringing to your school, but now, having had all of these experiences, you're going to bring to the world in it's really exciting grade. So when you think about I'm, you're going to be joining us at the summit, so I'm super excited to meet you in person. How do you think hearing from students like you at the summit will help shape future decisions in? Education.

Sinead Kiley: Like I said, I think it's about how firsthand accounts change policy, like really what we're looking at as policy here. You know, and I think that in my district, like student voice is so transformative, and in other districts too, I have this friend who's in Washington. She's a student board member. We met through NSBMA and we were discussing how we've changed had the policies in our district and she said that she convinced her District to let them do a vote for the students at this High School on whether or not they wanted open enrollment or not. And I thought that was so powerful that this District relinquished their power to the students to be ble, to make up their own mind about this decision. And so I think hearing stories like that success stories like my story, her story, almost every single student board member story that I hear is a success story on how students have been empowered in their districts.

So I think that hearing from us, hopefully it'll help boards to be able to understand not boards but administrations, teachers, Educators, understand how important it is to have student voice, not to trivialize it, not to, you know, believe that we're too young to be able to take a stand in our own education. I know there's legislation across the country that NSBMA is supporting to lower the voting age for school board members, specifically the 16, and I think that type of stuff is so powerful in policymaking because when policy makers and Educators listen to students, that's when I think decisions are most relevant, most Equitable and most effective, and we tend to stray away from that when we lose sight of who we're actually serving.

Rachael Maves: So yeah, absolutely. I love to hear if you wouldn't mind sharing like one or two things that you've been working on in particular that you're really forunate about that you've been able to enact as change within your school district.

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, so something big and I guess this is like the first thing that I directly worked on and for myself and for future student board members is: it takes a lot of time, right, to be a student board member, takes a ton of effort to look over everything, prepare yourself, and there's tons of students in my district, in all other districts and this is a huge thing that are socioeconomically disadvantaged and need to have a job, and being a student board member and having job is just not feasible at the same time with the time constraints of both positions, and so, starting from after fire year, we've implemented a policy that student board members will now be compensated through a scholarship or like new technology and things like that. So I hope it will open up the position to kids that don't normally see their faces in government, and we've been working on pushing that out to other boards across California. So I think that's a big one. Just within my own role and then outside of that, something that I'm proud of working on is CTE courses and like expanding the altern alternative education courses across our district and like raising awareness that for middle schools because at least in our district and I know so many across the country that are like that the culture has turned into this very competitive race in high school to become like top of your class and go to a foror university and have this life that's planned out and it's very cultural and it affects student mental health and that's a huge thing. When you ask high school students, middle school students, what's your number one issue? What do you feel is going wrong?

Mental health, mental health. And so I think the best way to address that problem is to open up choice and opportunity again. So we've been working on presentations to middle schoolers and doing visits and trying to just change the culture slowly, time and time again, to make sure that students feel that there isn't just one right path, there isn't just one Journey. You can be an electrician or construction worker. We have internships for that. We've created the opportunities like these are things that districts should be striving towards to give their students as much of bread, of opportunity as possible.

That those are, like my true side, really exciting good, for you should feel good about that's.

Rachael Maves: So what, when you reflect and you think about the work that you've done with the national student board member Association, what's one way you feel like you've really grown through that membership and participation in that organization, or even just as your work as a student board member?

Sinead Kiley: I feel like this is a Cheesy answer, but I feel like I've become a more empathetic individual because I have been a part, I've become a part of this community across the entire country. People's experence experiences are so different when you go from place to place, and there's this thread that obviously ties everyone in my community. We're all representing students on this broad level and I think that I've just I've begun to understand the challenges that people face. Across so much space, like I don't know. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around how much like issues that I've hear about in Baltimore, in Maine, in New York, in Texas, in Florida, like in Texas, they don't have student board members at all and we're fighting with students there to start bringing that legislation to the table, and I just feel so much more connected to youth leaders and also I feel more hopeful. There's such a big community of students that are willing to work on change like this and I'm sure I'll work on this past when I've graduated high school and Beyond, because it's an issue that's very near and dear to my heart.

Now that I'm hopeful for the future, I'm optimistic I don't know if I could have said that before, but, like we have a generation of student ERS that are really doing something and are going to continue doing throughout their lives. So I think that a big part of that is the community that I've had.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's, yeah, really exciting. So you're, you're a senior this year, right? This what?

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, this is my last year high school.

Rachael Maves: What are your, what are your plans for after high? School.

Sinead Kiley: I am planning on majoring in political science and, you know, attending a for year university. Yeah, kind of following on that life path. I don't know exactly where I'm going to end up. Or do? I know lots of kids my age. They have like their lives down.

Like I'm going to go to med school, I become a surgeon, do cardio. I'm kind of like you know, I know the general Fields international relations, political science. I kind of see myself in the future working at a nonprofit or the UN or something like that. Like I just I feel like my personality lends itself to that type of work. So that's kind of where I see my future building at. But who know, everything could change.

Rachael Maves: Well and really exciting. And you're right, there's there's so many Pathways and what you're, what you're exploring and what you're looking at doing, moving forward that I mean it really is Limitless in what direction politics takes. So I'm just glad that you're in it and we need great aners and people who are bringing in voice and have that layer of empathy. So thank you, Sinead, for just being a part of the conversation.

Sinead Kiley: Yeah, I mean I feel thankful, for every time I talked to another student board member I'm mind blown at the work they've done and like how much they've helped their communities.

Rachael Maves: So, yeah, what is one thing that you're looking forward to about joining us for? Summit.

Sinead Kiley: I mean, I feel like I've emphasized this a lot, but I'm really interested in community and like getting my voice out there and talking to Educators and stuff. And I'm sure because California although if you petition, this is like the law if you petition, a student board Position will be had. I'm sure I will meet Educators, administrators, students who come from districts where opportunities like mine aren't as big. They don't have a superintendent, student advisory Council, they don't have a student room member, they don't have representatives, and I just want to get that out there, that information, because once you know about it, once you've stopped becoming ignorant to this fact, kids, Educators, they love it. Like I know it's something that a lot of people are passionate about. That's what I'm most like fired up for is to find another community of people who are willing to share in my vision for, like, a better future for Education.

Rachael Maves: Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, thank you, Sinead, for your time today. It's been such pleasure and privilege to connect with you and I appreciate so excited to meet you now. I know in person it's going to be great.

Sinead Kiley: Thank you, okay.

Rachael Maves: Parsec Education is hosting the measure what we value Summit on February 5th through 6th in Fresno, California. Join us for impactful conversations on empathy and engagement, hard truths and more, alongside leaders like Shaka Booker, Rich sto, Jamila Scott, pepper Miller and student speakers like Timmy laori and Sinead Kylie. Tickets are limited, so make sure to secure your spot today. Get your tickets at parsecsummit.com.

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This transcript was created from the episode's captions and lightly edited for readability. It may contain small errors; please refer to the audio for exact wording.