Kentfield school board appoints former Assembly candidate
Sara Aminzadeh, a gubernatorial appointee who lost a close race for the Assembly in November 2022, has been provisionally selected for a Kentfield school board seat.
Aminzadeh was unanimously approved at the school district’s Dec. 12 board of trustees meeting. She took office immediately, after being sworn in by Raquel Rose, the district superintendent.
“We had four excellent candidates for the position,” board president David Riedel said. “It was really a testament to the strength of our community and the commitment of our community to our public schools.”
Aminzadeh, 41, fills a seat vacated on Nov. 15 by Silver McDonald, who moved out of the district for work reasons. McDonald’s term expires in December 2026.
Riedel praised the contributions of McDonald since her election in November 2022.
“We will deeply miss her,” he said. “She had a great perspective on issues that were in front of the school board.”
Aminzadeh’s appointment will run until December 2024. If she chooses to seek to serve out the balance of Silver’s unexpired term until December 2026, Aminzadeh would need to run for a short-term seat in the Nov. 5, 2024 election.
Aminzadeh, who has a son in kindergarten in the district, said she was drawn to the trustee role so that she can make an impact on numerous community issues.
“During my Assembly race, I was in daily conversation with kids, parents, teachers, schools and staff across the North Bay about safety, school lunches, equity and racial justice, opportunity gap, parent-teacher ratio, teacher and staff wages and more,” Aminzadeh said.
“Serving on the school board will give me the opportunity to work on all these issues at my son’s school, in my neighborhood and with my community,” she added.
In February, Aminzadeh, who lost the 12th District Assembly contest to Damon Connolly, was appointed to a state position by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom named her deputy secretary of external affairs at the California Natural Resources Agency. As such, she is a liaison for the governor with Congress, the White House and the federal government.
Since her appointment to the state job, Aminzadeh has resigned her seat on the California Coastal Commission, she said.
As a Kentfield trustee, Aminzadeh has joined the board’s safety committee because of her commitment to gun violence prevention, she said.
“The fact that my son and other kids his age will be going through ‘active shooter drills’ deeply upsets me,” she said.
Equity issues also are a key concern, Aminzadeh said.
“There are equity issues that I can work on in terms of closing the opportunity gap for kids for whom English is a second language or who have different learning abilities or social and emotional challenges,” she added.
Aminzadeh also said she hopes to play a role in helping to identify federal funds for facilities upgrades in the district.
“There are a myriad of solar upgrades and other infrastructure needs that our school district has, that I hope to assist with in terms of obtaining federal funds,” she said.
Aminzadeh is also a volunteer for several community nonprofits, such as Play Marin, Friends of Corte Madera Creek and San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.
“I’ve gone to public school my entire life, from kindergarten through law school,” she said. “I always knew I wanted to be part of the public school system and we chose where to live accordingly.”