Activist Ascends To Board Of Ed

Rising Wilbur Cross junior Dave Cruz-Bustamante is gathering troops of students and an activist outlook to bring to the table with him as the newly elected Board of Education’s (BOE) student representative. 

Dave, 16, was announced the winner of an uncontested BOE election this week and will serve as one of the board’s two student representatives for the next two years. 

He will be officially sworn onto the board at its July 11 meeting. Dave will take HSC senior Anthony Fiore’s seat and join rising Hillhouse senior Ma’shai Roman as the board’s non-voting student voices. 

Dave, a Fair Haven native, has been organizing in the community since 2020 for social justice-related issues. He was one of the dozen student organizers who arranged the student walk-out rally last month to call for more mental health supports in schools and police-free schools. 

“No one’s ever taught it to me. It just came naturally,” he said.

Currently Dave works with the Citywide Youth Coalition (CWYC) as a political education fellow and community outreach coordinator. Every Tuesday he facilitates a ​“Radical Wisdom” program, a space that offers student-led discussions about topics like racism, capitalism, and police brutality. The program also focuses on mental health check-ins and co-creating solutions to issues that they’re passionate about. 

While interested in improving his school district, Dave did not initially have an interest in the student rep seat. His biology teacher, Mr. Sang, and his friends, who saw his leadership potential, encouraged the candidacy. 

While on the board Dave hopes to transform the role of a board member to be a liaison who helps to organize, provide resources, and motivate the community to offer input and participate in decision-making.

​“I see this as an opportunity to have a position within a movement that’s rooted in community organizing and change,” they said. 

Among the plans: organizing a core group of students who will be involved with the board to have a presence at meetings and provide frequent student testimonies and varied perspectives. That will involve hosting testimony workshops for students to learn about the board and the importance of not relying on bureaucracy for change, Dave said.

“I want to push for a cultural shift to stop people from thinking elected representatives will save us,” Dave said. ​“We don’t need to be in elected positions to get our demands met.”

As a result of reading The Trial by Franz Kafka in school recently, Dave said, he hopes to shake up the district’s slow-moving and ​“Kafkaesque” processes.

Dave promised to prioritize pushing the board to invest in ​“rigorous and robust programs for restorative and transformative justice,” getting police officers out of school, and shifting the culture of schools into city hubs for fostering social harmony, recreation, and access to social, mental, and health services. 

“A school should be the anchor of the community. An entity that strengthens the fabric of a neighborhood. A community center, ” he said. ​“They [schools] should have an open-door policy for students and their families to go to one central place for city resources.”

Dave attended Fair Haven School for kindergarten to fourth grade and East Rock Community Magnet School for fifth to eighth grade. 

He aims to become a social worker or teacher in the future while continuing to do community organizing. 

Dave, who describes himself as a socialist, ran his campaign ​“For Hope and Victory” with the help of petition circulators from New Haven Academy, Wilbur Cross High School, Sound School, and Metropolitan Business Academy. His campaign committee included Adam Sharqawe, Brenda Morales, Juliana Guaillas Gonzalez, Sonia Sementilli, Reem Saood, Soph Arnaout, Sydney Fowlkes, Jacki Banegas, Elias Theodore, and Rosie Hampson.

The group collected 193 student signatures of support.

Next academic year Dave will be taking two advanced placement (AP) courses and two college courses, working at CWYC Monday through Wednesday, and taking the SATs. So he will need the help of his core group of supporters.

Dave also called for changing the charter to allow student representatives to vote. 

“We’re not there as decoration,” he said. ​“That needs to change if we really value student voice.
They shouldn’t see us as naive or out our minds.”