Rinu Nair
Fremont Unified School District Board of Education Area 4
Tenure
Term ends
Years in position
Predecessor
Elections and appointments
Personal
Contact
Rinu Nair is a member of the Fremont Unified Board of Education in California, representing Area 4. She assumed office on December 13, 2024. Her current term ends on December 8, 2028.
Nair ran for election to the Fremont Unified Board of Education to represent Area 4 in California. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Nair completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Rinu Nair was born in Santa Clara, California. She earned a high school diploma from Irvington High School and has attended De Anza Community College. Nair served as the chair of the Fremont Unified School District Wellness Committee.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Fremont Unified School District, California, elections (2024)
General election
Endorsements
To view Nair's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Nair in this election.
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Rinu Nair completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Nair's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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Rinu Nair has been a lifelong resident of Fremont and was a former student of Fremont Unified School District for 13 years. She has attended James Leitch Elementary School, Warm Springs Elementary School, Horner Middle School, and Irvington High School. She is currently attending community college in the Bay Area. She has demonstrated a strong commitment to community service from a very young. She has hosted backpack drives, donated food, tutored refugee students and built portable shelters for the unhoused. She joined Fremont Unified School District Wellness Committee where she brought mental health into district guidelines, enabled the introduction of new languages, and supported the Sandy Hook Promise. She is endorsed by a majority of the board and distinguished leaders of the community, showing their trust in her abilities and sincerity. She brings a student voice to the board and a next generation of leadership to address the challenges of students in the district.
- As a lifelong advocate for student wellness, I hope to promote student wellness. I want to offer accessible, compassionate mental health support and promote a positive and equitable learning environment.
- As a former student, I have seen the stress lack of available course offerings place on our students. I want to expand opportunities by allowing students to enroll in specialised courses not offered at their home schools, ensuring every student has the chance to explore advanced or unique subjects.
- My third priority is to preserve and promote campus safety. I hope to maintain an effective campus police program that promotes safety while fostering positive relationships between officers and students, ensuring a secure but supportive campus environment.
I have always been passionate about public education. Public education shaped me to become the person I am today. This passion has manifested in my work in the school district. We need to provide a well-rounded curriculum that meets the diverse needs of students in public schools. We need to work to find solutions to improve funding for our public schools.
I believe that integrity and being open-minded are the most important attributes for an elected official to convey. An elected official must be open to differing ideas and viewpoints. An elected official must be passionate about the work they do, ensuring that they are dedicated to serving the community. An elected official must be able to effectively communicate the concerns of the public and must have integrity to ensure they can be held accountable for their actions.
I am determined and passionate about our local issues and I have done work through committees and volunteer work to make the changes I want to see. I am an avid communicator who will be able to represent and voice the concerns of the community and most importantly, our students. I am dedicated and detail-oriented which ensures that any work is done after thorough research and planning.
I want to leave behind a legacy that shows that everyone's voice can be heard and represented. I hope to be a voice for our students as many of them fear speaking up about the issues on campus. I want to provide a fresh, new perspective to the discussion that will revolutionize how our school district approaches its issues.
The school board sets the priorities that guide the budget and policies for the school district. The board works to ensure curriculum aligns with state standards. District administrators work closely with the board and implement their decisions.
My constituents include our district's students, staff, administrators, teachers, parents, and the broader community at large. I hope to provide a student perspective to the board.
FUSD has one of the strongest special ed programs in the area. However, the state and federal mandates are not fully funded and I would work on finding ways to increase the funding that goes to these programs. I would also use the general funds to help students who are underperforming to raise the standard of education for the entire district.
I will regularly visit the schools to hear feedback on where help is needed and bring attention to the board. I have observed that students find it easier to communicate with their peers and hence, are more likely to relay their feedback as I am a former student. I will have an open communication channel with teachers working in our district and their leadership to hear their concerns and find strategies to address them.
Good teaching means being able to teach students with different learning styles, asking for feedback from students to measure how effective the teaching is, and making the necessary adjustments to make continuous improvements. I will support utilizing technology to make teaching more engaging and interactive in the classrooms.
I would support the implementation of a parcel tax to increase revenue for operating expenses. I would also work to expand public-private partnerships to support sports and arts programs. I would also work to publicize our newly renovated facilities to increase rental income. I would also use the alumni network I have access to to increase donations from alumni to support all schools.
I believe that the safety of our students is a non-negotiable. I have experienced lockdowns, robberies, and school shooting threats during my time as a student and I believe that we need to have an active SRO (campus police) on campus to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our students. I also believe that safety extends to emotional well-being, as chair of the Wellness Committee, I initiated the Sandy Hook Promise to ensure that students could report any threats on campus - physical, violent, and emotional. My opponent has worked to terminate the SRO program in FUSD in 2020. This program was thankfully restored and is now a nationally acclaimed program.
An emotionally supportive school environment with fair policies will reduce the stress on students. I believe that we should more effectively utilize county, city, and nonprofit resources for mental health education and emergency support. As chair of the Wellness Committee, I worked to include mental health in discussions along with discussions on nutrition - making it the first time the district took a holistic approach to wellness. We need to provide teachers and staff the resources they need so their mental health is not impacted by a lack of support from the district.
I would like to work on amending the Article 30 complaint process to make it fair to students and teachers. Currently, students and their families feel powerless when they report an issue because it is a lengthy process compared to any neighboring district in the county. As chair of the Wellness Committee, we worked to provide students with ways of anonymously reporting threats on campus by initiating the Sandy Hook Promise.
I would create a board policy to require homework, tests, and quizzes to be graded within two weeks so that students get timely feedback on their performance.
To address the issue of grading variability, the district should offer Professional Development classes to bring to light the impact grading variability causes on the mental health of students and how to resolve it.
The district should invest in software for student registration and course allotment as this is currently done manually and creates issues annually with registration. I am currently endorsed by 4 of the 5 current board members due to my work within the district and the perspective it brings.
My endorsements include:
Yajing Zhang - Fremont Unified School District Board President
Larry Sweeney - Fremont Unified School District Board Vice President
Sharon Coco - Fremont Unified School District Board Trustee
Vivek Prasad - Fremont Unified School District Board Trustee
Kansen Chu - Former Assemblymember
Lily Mei - Fremont Mayor
Kathy Kimberlin - Fremont Councilmember
Yang Shao - Fremont Councilmember
Fremont Police Association
AND MORE An ideal learning environment is one where students are physically safe, emotionally supported, and have diverse pathways to achieve success with the necessary resources to do so.
As a former student, I have interacted with parents in the district in the PTA, nonprofit organizations, and through my peers. I will work to regularly communicate with parents through forums, meet and greets, and social media to publicize diverse educational pathways and hear any parental concerns.
The district has been hiring teachers with emergency permits due to the lack of certified applicants. I support the idea of the district funding the certification to attract teachers to Fremont.
I believe that government accountability and financial transparency are a must. As a board member, I would work to ensure that spending and policies are transparent to the community. Our school district has performed well on the annual independent audit and review from the county Office of Education and I would work to ensure that such standards are maintained.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
External links
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 21, 2024
