Lisa Kouchakdjian was a two-term School Committee member and was elected to the Select Board in 2022. Kouchakdjian hopes to be elected for her second term on the Select Board to continue the positive momentum that the board has developed in Sudbury.
When asked about Kouchakdjian’s past experience, she detailed, “My public service really started in about 2012. I have four children and my oldest has down syndrome and autism, and I became active in the Sudbury Special Education Parent Advisory Council, and that was my first foray into public service.” At the time, she was also a member of the Community Resources Awareness Network (CRANE), which included Sudbury working with Lincoln to understand what resources were available depending on the issues that Lincoln and Sudbury schools were confronted with. In 2015, she was elected for the School Committee and then in 2018, she joined the Sudbury Commission on Disability. She believes that since her time there, Sudbury has made tremendous progress in improving access to people with disabilities by improving infrastructure to make buildings and schools more accessible. She also played a small role in bringing the Bruce Freeman rail trail to Sudbury, as well as a small role in helping to renovate the Fairbank Community Center.
As for her main goals if re-elected, one of her primary objectives is to become a member of a Vocational School District again. She believes the previous Select Board from a couple of years ago had not given enough attention to the problem that was created when leaving the Minuteman Vocational School district, so she left the School Committee to help make change where it was needed. She has been working on this issue for the past 3 years and hopes to further her work if re-elected.
She emphasizes, “Since that time, our numbers of students in vocational education have gone down, and part of the reason it has gone down is because the voc-ed schools who have been selected by the state have to accept students from member districts before they can accept students from non-member districts.” She believes that Sudbury is harming the youth by making vocational education less accessible, and she wants to teach the young to learn from their mistakes and develop growth mindsets. She feels that this is such an important cause because vocational schools combine standard education as well as lots of different programs in certain trades, which allow people to learn in the best way possible.
In addition to vocational education, two of her other main goals that she was working on in her first term, and plans to continue working on if re-elected, are capital planning and addressing staffing shortages. These issues are being advanced with the help of an in-town manager who is pushing the board forward in these areas.
Kouchakdjian’s final goal for if she is re-elected is to build a Sudbury where everyone feels welcome. She states, “We should denounce and renounce all forms of discrimination against all people.” She emphasizes her point specifically around disabilities due to her experience advocating for disabilities since the very start of her time in public services.
She wants to help all people with disabilities including the young people and the students of Sudbury, as well as the older people who may be aging in place. She believes that access to resources, recreation, and the buildings of the community are important aspects to ensure the safety of our community and to make Sudbury stronger.
Building on the foundation of what she hopes to achieve within the town, it is important to consider Kouchakdjian’s view on national politics, and how they could be utilized in Sudbury. When faced with the question surrounding national politics, she implies a stark contrast to certain aspects of the present state of our national government. She notes, “I am not an advocate anytime where law[ful] development is centered around cutting things, and then saying, how do I be efficient? That just doesn’t make sense to me.”
She believes in this manner, leaders often run the government like a business, which she does not agree with. She wants to highlight that being sensical will lead to the best benefits possible, rather than tearing things down immediately to reach a goal faster. She believes that this is the best way efficiencies can be created productively.
Overall, throughout the meet and greet Kouchakdjian highlights her strive to help all people, as well as her bright outlook on solving problems and making change. She provides us with a positive insight by introducing the phrase, “Feed two birds with one stone,” to show her passion for facing issues with sense rather than destructiveness. This philosophy, as well as the progress she has already made and her goals for the future, introduce what Kouchakdjian hopes to achieve if re-elected at the upcoming election on March 31st.