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When Alborz Bejnood ran for the School Committee in 2023 as a first-time challenger, he saw that the Cambridge public school system was facing a series of issues. Parents complained about the lack of high-level classes in middle school as students left the district and class sizes shrunk.
Two years later, he said not much has changed.
Bejnood, a young biotechnology researcher, is running in his second attempt to get on the Cambridge School Committee. But this time around, he is competing in an even more crowded group of candidates, as 18 individuals vie for six School Committee seats.
While many candidates are focusing on issues that resulted in the closure of the Kennedy-Longfellow Elementary school, Bejnood is prioritizing increasing access to advanced courses in middle school. He said this will place public school middle schoolers on level footing with their private school counterparts.
“I don’t want a situation where people can send their kids to private schools, and there’s this huge gap between the private and, sort of, public school options,” he said.
“What I want is not to sort of try and recruit kids to stay,” Bejnood added. “I just believe that if we provide the best system, they will organically choose to stay.”
But advanced coursework is not the only tool that Bejnood hopes to use to enhance CPS education. Bejnood is advocating to improve artificial intelligence literacy for both students and teachers, building on a resolution passed by the School Committee in September to research ways of integrating AI into schools.
“Maybe I’m a little on the naive side, but I don’t actually believe that AI is going to replace us,” Bejnood said.
Instead, he believes that AI should be incorporated into creating more personalized learning plans for students. For teachers, he says that using AI can decrease their time spent on mundane tasks to focus on creating personal connections with students.
“Everybody agrees that we shouldn’t rush into this, but I think that it’s a key factor,” he said of AI technology.
Bejnood, who grew up as the child of two public school teachers in Tennessee, is pulling on his own educational experiences to shape his policy positions. Harkening back to his own high school experience learning from experts, Bejnood is advocating for a program where local professionals can teach classes. The initiative would be similar to the trades program at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, allowing students to learn about more technical skills ranging from introductory finance to economics to STEM skills.
“Having such a program and encouragement would be both providing a way for younger professionals or city professionals who aren’t teachers to contribute to the community and the school system,” he said.
Bejnood recognizes the challenges of running in the historically-crowded field — but ultimately said the increased involvement is “healthy for democracy” at the local level.
“People are getting a much greater understanding that these issues matter enormously,” he said. “I think that’s part of why we’re seeing greater interest in schooling issues.”
Though he lacks experience in public office, Bejnood says his outsider perspective might be one of his biggest strengths. “Many times in life, I have found that one of the strongest sort of things that I’ve seen is not knowing what you can’t do,” he said.
“Relatively fresh sort of viewpoints and understandings of more modern systems is something that the School Committee would benefit enormously from,” he added.
—Staff writer Claire Jiang can be reached at claire.jiang@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @_clairejiang_.
