 corner, also known as Live at 525, and I am Martine LaRocke-Gulik. I am a school Burlington School Commissioner from Ward 4, and I am here today to introduce another new board member. Today we're going to be speaking with Saja Almagali. She is a brand new school board member this year, and we're thrilled to have her last month. Yeah, last month you may remember that I had another new board member, Lucia Campriolo, here. So we're kind of going through the list and introducing folks one at a time, and we're just really happy that you're here with us. And I do want to remind folks that this is a call-in show. You can call in and ask a question and I'll make sure to pick up the phone. The number is 802-862-3966. 802-862-3966. So we're going to start with some questions for Saja, and the first one if you would be so kind to just tell us a little bit about you. Yeah, for sure. Hello everybody. My name is Saja Almagali, and I am 21 years old, currently a student at the University of Vermont. I'll give a little bit background about myself. I am originally from Iraq. Back then I have six sisters and two brothers. My mom and my siblings moved to Turkey in 2013 in order to apply for immigration to come to the U.S. And in 2017, we moved here, Burlington to be specific. I am currently a student at UVM. I am majoring in biology, health, and society. Hopefully going to medical school after graduation. My siblings and one of my siblings and one of my sister live in Germany. We had to split when we moved to Turkey. Everybody else lives here. I have two sisters in Burlington high school and my brother who just graduated from Burlington high school. Yeah, I graduated from Burlington high school in 2020 and I am senior now at UVM. I also volunteer at UVM medical center and that's it. That's the biggie. So you're a rising senior at UVM. Next year you'll be a senior. I personally just want to say thank you so much for stepping up and taking on this role. This is so important. I think we've all learned that democracy doesn't just happen and it's something that we all need to engage in and I'm so thankful and I know the whole board is so thankful that at your young age and at this busy time of your life you stepped up to be on the school board. So so much gratitude. Thank you so much and I look forward to working with you and following your journey because I think you're going to have a very interesting life and lots of successes. So yeah, it's great. So Saja, thank you for that that brief overview of your life and your family. That is super helpful. Tell us a little bit about why you wanted to run for school board. Yeah, for sure. As I mentioned before, I am a graduate student from Burlington High School and when we came to the US the first time Burlington High School was the only option for my family and my siblings. So I and four of my siblings went to Burlington High School and just the community is really means a lot to me. And when I went to Burlington High School, I saw and experienced a lot of things that I wanted and hope to change. And I always had passion to give back to the community that welcomed me and my family when we moved in. So I thought it was a great time and great position for me to give back to the community. And also I was the only one who was running for Ward 8. So if he wasn't me, no one else would plan for that position. So I wanted to step up and represent Ward 8. So thank you for stepping up and getting in the arena. Yes, that's so important. So I think I remember you mentioning something at one point about when you first got here, the services for folks who spoke Arabic were lacking. Do I remember you saying that? Yeah, you may have been a little bit instrumental in getting some assistance with that. Could you talk a little bit? Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I when my family moved here, my mom didn't really speak a lot of English. And I basically was only one who knew a little bit of English didn't like navigate my way and help my family. And so when we started Burlington High School, it was just we didn't have a lot of help to like tell us about the system and everything, especially like the different system and the different education here and in Iraq. And just we felt that we weren't and I myself wasn't prepared enough to start school right away without really like help and assistant, just new language, new community and, you know, that nervous and like frustration of not really knowing where, you know, to go and do things. And in the school, there is not a lot of Arabic students. So it wasn't really like language translator wasn't available all the time for my mom or me or someone else. So it was really hard to like get involved, especially my mom who really didn't know anything. Like I was doing all my classes and doing all the other things that I need to do in school without my mom knowing. And during like parents conference meetings, my mom wasn't like in the school just because it's the lack of the language or like when I graduated and my other siblings started, I was the one who's translating for my mom and I was the one who's stepping up and like helping and I just even though it worked out, I just didn't think it was like fair enough to me to tell my mom that my brother was suspended or my brother, you know, has bad grades or something like that. So it was just a little bit of frustration of really not getting my family involved and not only my family and I'm pretty sure that's a lot with the new immigrants with the new students and their families who probably experienced the same frustration and had the same issues. Yeah, yeah, you bring up a really good point that you know, the school district is interacting with you and giving you support, hopefully and providing you with resources, but your support network, which is your family and maybe your friends. Also, you know, especially parents who don't speak the language really need that support, multilingual liaisons and and other resources that can really help them become part of the community and really engage in their children's lives. So were you did you feel that you saw an improvement or some change over time with support systems or multilingual liaisons or I know that's something that recently the districts really been working on. Yeah, well, during my time, I saw a little bit, but it wasn't like enough to say, yeah, that's what we wanted, you know, and when I graduated, I still had three of my siblings and one of them was my brother who was closer to graduation and he really didn't have all of his graduation requirements met and he didn't know about them and my mom didn't know that and he was he was like a lot of hard communication misunderstanding between the school and my mom. So my brother was the in the middle like not knowing what to do and like they helped him a little bit. My mom got the help she wanted, but it wasn't like directly school to my mom. It was like school to me, to him, to my mom. It wasn't like direct communication with the family and I definitely right now there's improvements. But before I don't I don't think it was enough to say, yeah, that's what we want. That it was smooth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that it'll be interesting, you know, this may be some area or an area of work that you can really sort of look into and see if there's been progress and sort of keep an eye on. I know that there is parent university is something that we've had here in Burlington and I was able to attend a few of the graduations and they were just absolutely amazing. Do you recall were your parents involved in that at all or no? No, I graduated during COVID. So I graduated in a car. Everything was different. Like it wasn't a lot of options and my brother graduated a year after me, which was still during the pandemic. They had graduation, but it wasn't like same. I still have two sisters, one junior and one sophomore and hopefully when it's time to graduate, my mom will be involved in their graduation vehicle to like come and understand, especially my sister is an honor student. So I want my mom to like know that absolutely. Everybody's doing well in school. Well, I appreciate you sharing that story. And that is something that can inform some of our work and the work of the district for sure. So what excites you most about some of the current work that we're doing as as a school board and as a district? Obviously, there's one big one that's kind of taking up a lot of our attention. But yeah, can you speak a little bit about that? Yeah, for sure. The most exciting thing is that we're making changes. We're working with problems and finding way to fix them and fill in where there is a lot of issues. And besides just making changes, we're here to improve the community itself. We're not only working as an individual person, we're working all together as a community, which really excites me because I'm really into community work and seeing the community get together to solve problems, like especially with what we had during the pandemic and school and all of that. And also having the experience as a student to be able to give back to the community from student perspective, rather, you know, from someone who just graduated and still in the school system and whose I would rather call myself experienced to help and fix the issues that we need to fix. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Saja, it looks like we have another visitor who's just showing up. It looks like Achilles is here. Welcome Achilles. Achilles Lakosu is another one of our new board members. Here he is. It's nice to have you. As they say in the biz, better late than never. I have heard that before. It's wonderful to have you Achilles. We have been hearing some great updates from Saja and some information from her. So I will ask you what I've asked her, which is, are you, by the way, hello, are you ready to go? Yeah, of course. Great. Could you just give us sort of a little bit of a brief bio about you? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family. Does he start? My family is from Benin, in Africa. I moved here when I was around four years old. We just decided to move to the States and I've lived here all my life. I am an avid member of the community and I did a lot growing up on a bunch of sports and theater, just growing up and got just grew a lot of connections and these last four years I was over across the lake at Sydney-Flasburg studying psychology and I am back home now going to UVM in the fall for grad school. Awesome. Congratulations. Thank you. I think I said last month when I was on this program with Lucia that I remember you from high school and I think I said something like yeah Achilles was everywhere. Everywhere you look there he was. At the school plays, at the musicals, at the concerts, at the sports so yeah lots of energy and like you said a ton of engagement which is awesome. So I'll ask the same question that I asked Saja. What made you run for school board and I'll tie that in with another question. What excites you most about the work that we're currently doing? I think it's really crucial to have young voices and young voices of color involved in situations and conversations that will benefit the kids that are closer to us. I think it's really important to have our insight not be the main insight but to be a supportive kind of background voice that will help lead and make decisions that will benefit all the students of our district and I think that the time is now for us to get involved. Yeah and from my perspective personally I mean I would just add to that and just say I actually think your voices are critical. You know a lot of us are older and we're white and we've lived here a long time or all our lives some of us and so having your perspective is so important and so again as I said to Saja I'll say it to you too Achilles like thank you so much for stepping up and thank you so much for engaging it's we're all very grateful and I'm so glad that you made it tonight. So let's see so our current work I know that we haven't touched on this yet but I think it was a reason maybe why both of you thought about running was you know what's happening with our high school and our tech center. Do either of you want to speak a little bit about that and how it was a motivation for you? Yeah I can say that our school was very inclusive while I was there and there's a lot more students from different backgrounds and I think that building a new school that supports all students is going to be really helpful moving forward because Vermont is in Bronson in general is getting more colorful and more diverse and I think that like I said before it's just really nice to have young voices who just recently graduated to give insight on what we think works for a new school and what doesn't work for a new school and I think that is one big thing that led me to running and to become elected. Awesome and Sajid did you want to add to that? I'll just definitely agree with what killer says is you know bringing new voices into the district and having more people involved and people like us students who experience the issues who went to the school who knows what's best for the school and I definitely especially with like having kids go and study in a mall is not an ideal way of teaching especially with spending a lot of money paying for the space and you know having the students really not getting the experience they deserve. Right absolutely it's it's been okay for a temporary fix but a long term fix it it just doesn't seem to yeah not not what we're shooting for here not what we're aiming for so I put here or this question that I wanted to pose to both of you what do you value most about the Burlington school district and you've both kind of touched on it but maybe just highlighting that again what is it about the school district that I always felt Akilah said I could sort of feel your enthusiasm and your love for for the district but yeah can you talk a little bit about that well we can start with Saja this time yeah definitely so as I mentioned before the community itself everybody works here as a community we went through hard times during the pandemic and with you know switching the schools and having students go from being in a classroom to studying in a mall and everybody stepped up and stayed together and tried to find alternative solutions to a problem without just giving up right away you know and just everybody working as a community it's just hard to to find community who stays together during hard times so definitely like seeing everybody working together brought me joy and just brought me hope that we still community yeah and I would just agree with that I went to graduation on Friday and it was it was a beautiful joyous occasion I mean there was just so much joy and so and it wasn't like woe is me it's been a hard couple of years it was we got through this together awesome like and let's move forward so yeah that was awesome so sorry Akilah what was your answer to that question I would say I just always had a love for Burlington um we're definitely the most diverse um county and town within the state and there's so much good that comes throughout the streets that we live on and I just I also love working with children and we're working for our children and so my work moving forward is um going to be in school so it was really it made sense for me to just grab an insight on how schools run in the background and it also would benefit me moving forward how to um collaborate with um community members and teachers um when working for our students and working for the children of our of our town awesome that's that's fantastic um I do want to remind folks that this is a call-in show if you'd like to call in with a question we are at 802-862-3966 uh 3966 802-862-3966 and you could call and ask your question and I'll make sure to pick up but in the meantime if we don't have any uh calls what else do I have here um you've sort of answered this next question which is what makes you especially well positioned to serve our district at this time I think you highlighted the fact that your graduates and that you are students from diverse backgrounds from backgrounds that are actually um seen in our school you know a large part of our district are new americans and people of color and so you are representing which is huge and so important um is there anything you would want to add to that in terms of like and I mean also your youth the fact that you're young newly graduated I don't think so okay the next question is actually kind of a fun one um we're sort of on the cusp of summer here we're still in spring but it feels like we're heading into summer so what are some of your favorite things to do in burlington during the summer months I love just spending time with my friends on the water um I'm on the water whenever I'm not working um I work out I work out water works and when you ski so I I love working and it's a it's a good spa so I see everyone every night and I just like love being outdoors because burlington summer is the best summer ever hmm agreed yeah sacha how about you well if I have free time if big if I take summer classes every summer so I don't get time off from school but I have an decent nephew that I'm in love with that I just hang out with all the time babysit whenever I can so most of my time babysitting them taking them out and teaching them how to walk and eat and do things also spend time with family I also volunteer so that takes most of my time and work and yeah it's just the summer is beautiful so right I getting a book and hand the king yeah I also have a new niece that I hang out with a lot yeah two years old so we have a lot of congratulations I'm going to be a great aunt yeah so I'm really looking forward to that yeah I'm my my niece is having a baby so I'm excited um but um let's see around summer so in terms of volunteering obviously being on the school board is part of your volunteer work I hope yeah yes you're counting that good because it is a lot of work and it's um it's it's an important important job and as I said I'm we're we're so thankful that you both have stepped up to do this I can't thank you enough um do you two have any questions for me as we sort of start thinking about wrapping up I got the 10 minute call a little while back so probably you're down to a few minutes but yeah do you have any questions for me or anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about um I guess what's your favorite part would be on the school board what's my what's my favorite part yeah oh that is a pretty good question because you're a veteran you know right yes I'm a veteran that's true um I love solving problems honestly uh some people will say to you oh being on the school board it just seems so thankless and I you know oh yeah I don't see it that way I actually it's I think it's really rewarding and fulfilling and you know you definitely can't always make everybody happy but I love the input from the community the input from the other board members and then the sort of working together to try to solve a problem I just find it really exciting and important obviously collaboration yeah exactly collaboration is huge so I would say that is my favorite part of being on the school board um but yeah also getting to meet really great people is always a bonus um I do always like to remind folks as we get toward the end of our show that we have a great district website www.bsdvt.org and I you know recommend that folks go to the website and check in on updates everything from our new hires we've done as you know a lot of hiring this these past couple weeks so you can check out bios from some of our new leaders in the district you can check up on updates on the bhsbtc 2025 project which will be a continual source of discussion and work uh moving forward um you can also read a little bit about some community engagement opportunities uh celebrating SOAR our summer learning program which is going to be starting real soon that's on the webpage and also summer meals so summer meals are available again this summer and they will be distributed in different parts of the city so I highly recommend that folks uh go to that webpage and get that information as soon as possible um yeah I think we are close to wrapping up again I just want to say thank you both so much for being here thank you for being on the school board um we have a meeting tomorrow night and you know we'll be meeting periodically throughout the summer so hopefully you'll both be able to to make those meetings and um I guess I just want to say thank you and I really appreciate you being here of course thank you for your time thank you so much no worries no problem with Kilos I know you're busy you got a lot going on all right awesome thank you very much thank you everybody for watching