Why I'm Running for the Monrovia School Board

As a graduate of the Monrovia Unified School District, I am honored to run for the Monrovia School Board to advocate for my community.

As co-founder of the Healing Connections Committee, I expanded mental health services for my peers in Monrovia schools. I took my passion to our state's Capital as an Education and Mental Health Policy Advocate and pushed for equity-centered solutions and funding to prioritize care for vulnerable student populations.

Monrovia Unified School District is facing an important crossroad affecting our students’ education, health, and opportunities to thrive. We must prioritize the safety, academic engagement, and social and emotional wellbeing of students during this pandemic and in the future.

Before COVID-19, our school district faced an increasing rate of chronic absenteeism that surpassed the statewide average, low math proficiency scores, and alarmingly low rates of student-reported post-graduation college and career readiness. As a community, we cannot revert to business as usual, as that jeopardizes the future success of our community's diverse vulnerable student populations.

My plan for insuring our students’ success will include:

• Enhancing innovation around distanced-based learning by recognizing student health in engaging online learning and implementing learning plans that provide students the opportunity to gain independent learning abilities
• Improving transparency and communication for parents by increasing opportunities to engage the district and providing different mediums for our diverse parent populations to interact with our schools
• Providing additional mental health services for all students by introducing Adverse Childhood Experience Screenings in our primary and middle schools and adding more educational counselors in our schools
• Increasing focus on college and career readiness for our high school graduates through Annual Life Skills Day and Automatic Acceptance

When all students thrive, we thrive as a community. Please visit my website at sasharyzaroyan.com for a detailed look at my equity-focused solutions for our community. I hope to earn your vote on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020.