Pranav Choudhary, a junior at Langley High School, has been elected by the countywide Student Advisory Council (SAC) to serve a one-year term as student representative to the Fairfax County School Board, beginning July 1. Choudhary will participate in School Board meetings as a nonvoting member, filling the position currently held by Nathan Onibudo, a senior at South County High School. He will be the 51st student representative to the School Board, Fairfax County Public Schools announced.
Choudhary has three main focuses as student representative: academic support, expanding accessibility and communication for resources, and mental wellness. “At the end of the day, everything comes down to communication; even when resources are available in our schools, they are often nearly impossible to find,” he states, adding that combining the relationships he’s built with his personal experiences will enable him to work toward meaningful change.
Specifically, Choudhary wants to develop a multi-language Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) student newsletter that includes mental health and academic resources. He also wants to help connect students with Systems of Support Advisors (SOSA), full-time academic support counselors in high schools, and expand the program to middle schools. According to Choudhary, this would provide intervention for struggling students as early as possible with visible results.
And as a representative for all students, he also plans to actively seek out the voices of students from all areas of the county and all walks of life and, in doing so, to gain additional insight on existing problems “in order to develop tangible, workable solutions to solve those problems.
“I would particularly emphasize the value of direct student support and how it can prevent both mental health struggles and school withdrawal.” His focus on mental health includes suicide risk screenings every year “to ensure that students who are in crisis can get the support they so desperately need as soon as possible.”
Choudhary has been a consensus builder as a student government contributor. “I’m drawn to building bridges and actively seeking people out,” he explains. “On the Student Advisory Council (SAC) School Community Committee and Relationships Subcommittee, I’ve worked on developing ambitious, goal-oriented solutions to tackle the problems we face.” Choudhary says his efforts have included feedback from students of all different backgrounds, school communities, and academic experiences.
Choudhary is Langley’s Student Advisory Committee delegate; co-founder and co-chair of the Virginia Teen Democrats; a reporter at the Saxon Scope, Langley High’s student newspaper; Journalism Club president; and a Cappies critic. In high school, he has studied Russian, Journalism, Theater Arts, and Personal Development along with core courses in English, social studies, science, and math. As a senior, he will study leadership, English, Advanced Placement (AP) government, AP Russian, precalculus with trigonometry, journalism, physics, and economics and personal finance.