I ran for school committee, but I didn't get on it. I ran for two years in a row. And my main motivation there was just to kind of change the conversation here in Shrewsbury. You had asked some of the challenges in Shrewsbury. One is that we have 100% white school administration, school committee leadership, in a district that's 51% non-white, which is, I mean that's a huge disparity. So, when I ran—and I think towns in general have a habit of not speaking directly about certain issues, because they want to uphold the appearance that everything is okay, everything is fine, we're an awesome school, that kind of stuff. But I think you know you can be an awesome school and also acknowledge, these are areas we need to work on and really tackle those. So, me running was just an effort to kind of encourage new people to run and push some of these different topics to the forefront of conversation.
Sanam Zaer was born in 1983 and is a mother to 2 biological children and several foster children and who lives in Shrewsbury Massachusetts. Sanam grew up in Grafton and has lived all over, spending most of her time in Central Massachusetts and California. Sanam attended University of Massachusetts Amherst where she earned her bachelor’s in journalism and English and a master’s degree in education. Her early love for spending time with children helped her to her current profession as an elementary school tutor and a school administrator. She also describes her role in “A Better Shrewsbury,” an online advocacy group to expand resources to serve all populations.