An Idaho 18-year-old just got elected to the school board for the first time in history
High school senior Shiva Rajbhandari wants better for Boise's 26,000+ students and thousands of staff. He beat an incumbent to begin making it happen.
Shiva Rajbhandari turned 18 less than two weeks ago, and has just begun his senior year of high school. He is now a newly-elected member of Boise’s school board — a council overseeing a school district of over 26,000 students. Rajbhandari is the first student to ever serve on the board.
Rajbhandari received 56.4% of the vote (10,944 votes), beating incumbent Steve Schmidt’s 43.6% of the vote (8,461 votes). Schmidt prided himself as someone who would work to “represent all parents, even the ones I disagree with, on their political views,” as he told the Idaho Press. He said this in response to being endorsed by groups like the Idaho Liberty Dogs — a far-right group that, among other things, attempted to ban books like Captain Underpants in a neighboring school district.
But these endorsements were only part of Rajbhandari’s motivation while running against Schmidt. A lifetime student of Boise schools, Rajbhandari has been deeply immersed in youth organizing focused on issues including climate, education, voter engagement. The more he got involved, the more frustration and bureaucracy and roadblocks he confronted — and yet too, the more energy and passion he found in his peers, and the more inspired he grew. He soon felt compelled to channel this energy and passion into the same place he previously found frustration and disappointment.
In the wake of Maxwell Frost’s historic win over a crowded democratic field in Florida’s 10th congressional district primary — almost ensuring Frost to be the first Gen-Z member of congress — Rajbhandari’s campaign and subsequent victory stood out to me. What drove an 18-year-old in Idaho to run for school board? How does that campaign work, and what does it take to actually win? And is it just Rajbhandari, or is there a broader ecosystem of energy, pulsing and spreading, showing that change can happen anywhere?
This conversation is slightly edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about yourself, from zero to eighteen – who is Shiva Rajbhandari?
I was born in Boise. My dad is from Nepal, my mom is from Swan Valley, Idaho. They met at the University of Utah. I attended Boise schools my entire life – elementary, junior high, and high school.
I think I really started getting involved in politics and with the climate justice movement in ninth grade. I learned about climate change in seventh grade – I was super lucky actually to even learn about that. Because in Idaho at the time, climate change wasn't even part of our state science standards. So I was lucky to attend a school where I had a teacher who was comfortable teaching that. And I think for two years, I was just — it just blew me away. But it felt very internalized to like, you know, we need to recycle more, and so on, and I think I failed to realize I fell for kind of the corporate trap, you know the greenwash trap.
In ninth grade, there was a climate strike organized by the Sunrise Movement and I attended that with some friends, and it was just very inspiring. Because for so long, I felt so isolated. And to see seriously, like half my school at this strike in the capital…it was just so inspiring. And they had an open mic, so I got up there. And there's a really funny video of me with a really high voice, going after politicians in Idaho who, you know, really don't do anything on climate.
And from there, I started Extinction Rebellion Youth Boise and started organizing. It's funny because there was kind of an adult chapter to begin with, and it was just a bunch of old white men. And they got together and held this presentation at a library. And I was supposed to present originally, but then they're like, “no you can't present anymore. You're in charge of recruiting.”
Anyway, there were like 100 people who came and 27 of them were students in my school who my friend and I recruited. And then they basically gave this ultimatum: “We need to be in the streets, demanding our government to act on climate now.” And then all the adults basically got up and left. We all decided to do something. We did our first protests at Chase Bank. We grab some poster boards from our school resource room, and make some signs and then we all brought brooms and mops, and we head down to Chase Bank — which is the number one lender to the fossil fuel industry — and we just “clean up the mess.” It was a lot of fun, just really cool and very empowering.
I was involved with that organization for about two years. We planned the climate strikes, led a community garden. And I really do think we built a foundation of the Youth Climate movement in Boise, because at that time it didn't really exist. Now it's very big, everyone's doing stuff.
Then I got a job with the Idaho Conservation League, doing salmon stuff, trying to breach some dams. Worked with BABE Vote to help register voters — we registered over 2500 Idahoans to vote. Especially when student voter rights were under attack in the legislature this past year, we organized a ton of people to testify. I worked with Reclaim Idaho too, which is this civic group that does ballot initiatives. They did the ballot initiative to expand Medicaid back in 2018, and then this year to fund education. My friends and I collected signatures on that.
But really, my start with education politics probably came into form first while Idaho has been the center of these baseless attacks on our school — critical race theory or whatever — from our lieutenant governor, who has photos with known white supremacists. She led this task force, which really targeted specifically Boise schools. And, you know, they never found anything, but it really was this intimidation game. I was very against that — in the press, testifying, showing up to protests against this task force. What frustrated me was that I didn't see my district leaders there. They were very passive. And because of that, we had a lot of teachers leaving the profession. And the number one reason is they don't feel respected by the political climate.
With the Idaho Climate Justice League, we worked with students all across the state on a long term plan for clean energy and sustainability in our schools. We delivered the biggest petition the school district had ever received, really just asking for meetings with these board members, and they never really had time for us.
I remember one day I wrote a letter to my school board president just asking for a meeting, detailing some of our efforts, and I never received a response. But I know he read the letter, because one week later, I get called in to the principal's office, and he's like, “Hey, you can't, you know, why are you reaching out to the school board? You can't do that…why aren’t you going through me…you're humiliating our school,” and it was just really eye opening as to how the district saw us students, which is not as constituents of the board, not as the primary stakeholders in our education, but as kind of a nuisance. Like we can't really bring a lot to the table. And so that was frustrating and that's kind of when I made the decision to run.
It's striking to hear you describe this combination of teachers dealing with disrespect from state officials, and students like yourselves feeling as if you're not respected or represented by school board officials. It seems wrong for two of the most primary stakeholders of schools, teachers and students, to feel not only misrepresented, but just attacked. That must be frustrating.
Yeah, it certainly is and yeah, I ran to to represent my community and because teachers can't run for the school board, but students can. Although no student in Boise ever has. But I am not here out of a place of animosity. I'm really here out of a place of filling the vacancy that is there on the board. I am really looking forward to working with the board members and our teachers union and our amazing staff.
Say a bit more about how you see Boise as a community — the politics, the broader atmosphere and climate.
Boise is a very progressive city surrounded on all sides by pretty conservative communities. We have a crazy legislature, we see a lot of extremism. But I think we're also all a lot more vigilant — and I think that was reflected in the school board race. But it's really hard to find a community that is more involved than Boise, especially on the student front. I talk to organizers across the country in places like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, DC, where, you know, that's where you think of when you think of hubs for progressive organizing. And they all talk about how Boise is popping off — it's crazy — as far as things like climate activism goes, and I think a lot of that was built by some of our effort.
You've focused a lot on fundamental issues like mental health, teacher pay, how educators have to pay for their supplies. But you’ve also addressed more hot button issues like book bans, critical race theory — things that seem to be expanding this deeper realm of culture war in school politics. What has been on your mind while confronting all this?
Idaho one of the leading states for suicide. Even before the pandemic, in 2019, ten percent of Idaho teens acted on suicidal thoughts. 10%. Had acted. So that doesn’t even tell you how many people were having those thoughts and how many people were struggling with mental illness. That's something that we see in schools every day, and we don't have the counseling resources. And yeah, we're underfunded, right? Idaho has the lowest per pupil education funding in the country right now.
But that has to be a priority. And that's something that's very close to my heart. We have suicides every year in school, our student-to-counselor ratio is 150% of what it should be. And when we talk about these issues, we don't really talk about them, we talk around them — it's very much stigmatized. And that has to change. And so I'm determined on the board to hire more counseling staff and more mental health personnel and support staff for schools, and also provide teachers the opportunity to get training on how to talk about mental health in the classroom, because it really should be a centerpiece conversation.
On education funding, you know, I'm a student. And Idaho schools are struggling, you know, teachers need to be paid better. We're losing teachers. You can just drive 50 miles to the west and you're in Oregon, and you're paid virtually double as a teacher and these are qualified professionals. I think that speaks a little bit to some of the critical race theory stuff — it's coming from people who have no clue and they haven't been in school for years. One of the dudes on the “indoctrination task force” was actually from New Zealand. And there was another guy who moved from California. The indoctrination task force was in the summer — he moved in June and he had already “found indoctrination” in our schools.
Our teachers are qualified professionals. You don't question a doctor who's saving your life, you're not like “oh, wait, let me do my own research” in the middle of open-heart, you don’t question a lawyer, but why do we question our teachers so much? That really frustrates me. So I really am there for our teachers and I really do support the work of our teachers and our teachers union (even though I did not get their endorsement).
On book bans: it's a constant threat. The Nampa school board, which is a neighboring city, voted ban 24 books from the schools. I think three of them were on the AP Literature and Composition reading list. So these students are being disadvantaged. Free access to information is the cornerstone to a democratic civil society. Book bans go against everything about that.
And then, just a few weeks ago in the Meridian Public Library, which is a neighboring school district, the Idaho Liberty Dogs really came after their library board and tried to ban a whole set of books, which was really disturbing. But the Meridian community really showed up. But then a week later, The Liberty Dogs come in and they endorse my opponent, as well as five other candidates. It spoke volumes about the risk that extremism poses in our community.
What has running been like? Who have you been working with? Who has come out in support for you?
Gosh, it's been so humbling, the support that we received. My treasurer, Sam Sandmire, is someone who I've known since sixth grade. She's always been in my court and always supported students, and she's just an incredible progressive leader with Reclaim Idaho. My campaign manager, Ella Weber is so on top of things. This was the first campaign she's ever run entirely on her own. And, wow. She reached out to me and was like “hey, you need help with your campaign, and I'm here for you.” And I'm so so grateful that she did that, because we would not have won without her.
I'm super happy that we raised $10,290. 181 people donated to my campaign, and the average donation amount was like 50 bucks. So that was super inspiring. So many volunteers, my friends, knocking on doors, you know, really running a campaign the way it should be run. Often in school board elections, people don't typically tend to vote, especially this election, because it's the day after Labor Day for some reason. But I think we saw with the turnout how excited people were about this campaign. What I was super happy with was that we were able to hire 15 students with a wage, to go out and door knock. I'm proud of that because I think that people should be paid for their time, and especially young people.
As far as endorsements I was so honored to receive my first endorsement from someone who has been a strong influence of mine: Lisa Sánchez. She's a city council member, and the only Latina who's ever served on the council, the only renter on the city council. She's just incredible. And then, following her endorsement, her friend, Jimmy Hallyburton, who is also on the council, endorsed me and gave me some really great advice. Representative John Gannon, who is a legislator. And this kind of blew everything out of the water — Jim Jones, who is the former Attorney General and Chief Justice of the Idaho State court. He's a big advocate against extremism. It was such an honor to get his endorsement and hear from him, as I had previously just met him briefly at a work thing. And then I got the endorsement of the Idaho Statesman which I think is what helped push us over the edge.
You seem to be a very inspired person. What sorts of things, even if they don't help you get up in the morning, help anchor you at night when you're feeling exhausted, or hopeless? It's hard enough to be a teenager as it is.
I think I'm inspired by my peers. And, you know, nothing that I’ve done, I've done alone. It's all been my friends and my family who have supported me. And what's so cool is that when you have that kind of support, you never feel alone. Because sure, you're pushing the boulder up the hill, but it's a group effort.
We are so lucky right now: we have the privilege that we can stop climate change, that we can save lives in our schools, that we can fight to save democracy. Not taking advantage of that, not being a part of that — win or lose — would be remiss. I don't know how I would talk to my kids 20, 30 years down the line — I guess, maybe not 20 years down the line…what, 10 years? Oh my god, whatever — if we weren't doing that, and I think that's what motivates a lot of people. I think also it's contagious, right? I'm in a community of so many empowered people. People who know how much their voice matters. And that's why representation is important because when you see your peers succeeding, you know you can succeed.
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An Idaho 18-year-old just got elected to the school board for the first time in history
Love this so much, Prem. So inspiring. Thank you for writing!!!!! And thank you Shiva Rajbhandari!
Thank you for this insightful, accurate piece on Shiva Rajbhandari. You captured his passion, thoughtfulness & energy. I am hopeful about our future because of young, inspired people like Shiva.