While Student Member of the Board (SMOB) elections happen every year, this year’s boasts some variety from previous years with both candidates hailing from the same school–Richard Montgomery–and both being female. The election will take place April 25, providing all students a chance to vote on the candidate of their choice.

The role of the SMOB is “an elected official who can vote on issues like administrative appointments (including hiring of the Superintendent of Schools), policy, and the Board of Education’s legislative platform,” according to the MCPS website.

“They [SMOB] take Rockville’s suggestions and try their best to advocate for them,” Katherine Gross, the Rockville SMOB advisor said.

After an initial round of elections that included 20 students from throughout the county, juniors Nimah Nayel and Ananya Tadikonda will be the two names on the April ballot for students to vote for.” Nayel said she wants to represent a wider demographic of people than previous SMOBS.

“I saw that demographic and the lack of representation for people like mea, there’s nothing stopping me from doing it, except myself, and I decided to just kind of go for it,” Nayel said.

With mental health growing as a topic for many MCPS students, Nayel suggested giving all MCPS students prone to panic attacks a “flash pass,” which allows students to leave class quickly rather than raising their hand and signing out.

“If they’re in a situation where they need to leave the place they are in immediately…they can just show the flash pass to their teacher and then go directly to counseling office or the library without any questions,” Nayel said.

Tadikonda is currently the vice president for the Countywide Middle School SGA and she previously served as the president as well.

“I’ve been involved in student advocacy for five years and that gives me the opportunity to see how change is made in our school system,” she said, “and I thought that right now there are some discrepancies in how diverse of a perspective we gain before we make those changes. I believe I have the tools represent a diverse range of students in Montgomery County.”

One policy Tadikonda hopes to implement is a chromebook rental system, which could allow students without access to computers at home to rent chromebooks and use them at home in order to complete homework, study and work on other assignments.

The current SMOB is Matthew Post, a senior at Sherwood High School. His term will end June 30, and the newly-elected SMOB will take his place.