Modesto student trustees prioritize ‘being the change,’ post-COVID motivation

As this year’s student representatives on the Modesto City Schools Board of Trustees, senior Sabrina Toor and junior Julianna Garcia are looking to take on student apathy and the lingering impacts of the pandemic on student motivation.

“The classroom is so different after spending a year and a half online,” Davis High student Garcia said. “It’s important to me that as we discuss more difficult topics, that student voice is always incorporated into every decision. That’s always been at the heart of my values.”

The Modesto City Schools Board of Trustees hosts two student representatives for a yearlong term so that student voices are included in the board’s governance. Until the 2024-25 school year, the district only had one student representative. Students serving on the board of trustees are given a vote that expresses the opinion of their constituency, but their vote will not be considered in the final tally, according to the district’s bylaws.

“A key trait that we need in student representatives to the Board is courage,” Superintendent Vanessa Buitrago said. “That’s because we need students who won’t simply conform to the ideas of adults in the room. We need students to bring in their own ideas, which is what Representatives Toor and Garcia do. These student representatives aren’t just bringing in the voice of the students. They are bringing the courage to lead.”

This year, Garcia and Modesto High student Toor want to jump on the district’s “Be the Change” campaign, which promotes the idea that students who see opportunity for advancement or improvement implement ideas themselves. The goal is to help promote safe and inclusive environments and simultaneously encourage students to find their passion and use it to be more involved with their campus and education.

“We want to create tools and resources to give students so that they can [address] what they see as their own issues,” Garcia said.

Toor said addressing student apathy involves incorporating students’ input to understand what motivates them. According to both student trustees, the pandemic allowed students to get by with a “bare minimum” attitude that has removed excitement and drive from classes, extracurricular activities and campus life.

“So it’s really COVID and social media uptake and how our state policies have adapted after COVID and then how we’ve adopted those policies at the district,” Toor said.

Toor and Garcia collaborate with student leadership across all of Modesto City Schools’ high schools to better understand each student body’s needs and perspectives, then represent those needs to the trustees. With their current goal of more student engagement, Toor and Garcia hope to help their peers lead by example.

“The goal is to tackle student engagement,” Toor said. “Since we know this is a very long process, to set a precedent and have other students be examples for others to show them the importance of being involved and getting excited about education.”

Outside her seat as a Board of Trustees student rep, Toor created a nonprofit called Creation4Cessation, which looks to promote “art activism” as a way to cut tobacco and vape use. She is also involved with a nonprofit called the Indian Cultural Society and is an editor at her school newspaper. She loves cooking, reading and playing the piano in her free time.

Garcia is the ASB vice president at Davis High, co-president of a feminist club on campus, Project Her, and is on her school’s swim and tennis teams. Outside of school and extracurriculars, Garcia spends months perfecting her recipes, including her most recent for chocolate chip cookies, and loves to crochet.

This story was originally published October 8, 2025 at 9:00 AM.