Tara Sreekrishnan is no stranger to firsts
She is the first Indian American to be elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Education, the first Indian American Chief of Staff at the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and one of few Indian American elected officials in Santa Clara County.
Now Sreekrishnan is running for California Assembly District 26, which lies at the heart of Santa Clara County in Silicon Valley. If Sreekrishnan wins, she will be the first Hindu woman in the California Assembly and the only Asian Indian woman to represent the Bay Area.
“My focus has always been rooted in uplifting our next generation – ensuring we have strong schools and education and ensuring that we have opportunities for students to excel and thrive,” said Sreekrishnan in an exclusive interview with India Currents.
A daughter of Indian immigrants
The daughter of immigrants, Sreekrishnan’s parents worked multiple jobs while raising their children, and did not engage in politics as much as they may have wanted to. But their hard work has given her the privilege of representing her community, says Sreekrishnan.
“Not a lot of folks are like me where our whole life is public service and civic engagement.”
“It is important for us to be a collective voice so we are heard. So when issues come up that affect us, we are a strong voice on those issues. And then we have to stay continually engaged, on a broad range of topics.”
Current roles
Sreekrishnan currently serves on the Santa Clara County Board of Education in Trustee Area 2 (cities of Cupertino, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and Los Altos). She is also the Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for California Senator David Cortese.
She is now vying for Assembly District 26 seat against 5 other candidates ever since Democrat Evan Low, who currently represents Assembly District 26, decided to run for Congress (CA-16).
Inspired by her mother, who was a school employee in a local school district and a dedicated community volunteer, Sreekrishnan grew up in Cupertino, CA, volunteering with her in the libraries. “She was someone who always did the good work behind the scenes and didn’t ask for recognition. And so I always emulated her in my service” acknowledged Sreekrishnan.
After college, she started volunteering on political campaigns, starting as an organizer in local government, before moving to the city level, followed by the County of Santa Clara, and now the state.
Education, Environment, and Housing priorities
“I’m running to continue working on the issues I’ve been working on at the local level on the County Board of Education, and at the state level, with the focus on education, climate, and housing,” states Sreekrishnan.
Investing in education and transit infrastructure will help the middle class, she adds. “We have to be thinking in the long term. I think sometimes folks have a short-term view about things” Her top priorities if elected will be to address the climate crisis, ending reliance on fossil fuels, “and making sure that folks can have a place to live here in our community and in California.”
Last year at the California State Senate Sreekrishnan managed a package of bills and got 15 bills signed into law. The laws that were meaningful to her included a partnership with the governor’s budget to get Narcan on middle and high school campuses. It provided training for school employees about administering Narcan, prevention, and school safety plans at the local level.
Sreekrishnan is proud of her work on a bill focused on water conservation, working with the Building Standards Commission to make sure new buildings conserve more water while creating high-quality jobs in the Pipe Trades.
She also worked on a bill on student safety that ended prone restraint, which is the facedown restraint of students.
At the county level, she continues to work on strengthening early learning to help close the achievement gap and support the earliest learners.
Closing the achievement gap in Santa Clara County
Sreekrishnan serves on the board of SCCBOE- a regional service agency for 31 school districts with over 270,000 public school students, that works on closing the academic achievement gap across the county.
“We are an appellate body for certain local school district decisions and we are an advocate for public education” she adds. “If you just look at education funding, there are school districts that have a lot more per pupil than others. And so at the state level, we’ve looked at an equity multiplier in our LCFF, local control funding formula.”
While equality is essential in education, equity provides underrepresented and under-resourced students with resources that fit their circumstances, explains Sreekrishnan, “Equity is making sure opportunities are the same.”
A common example is giving each student a laptop to take home (equality) but if the student does not have Internet at home, it does not afford the student the same opportunity cost (lack of equity).
She emphasizes giving children a strong education and early learning, in the long run, leads to a more informed workforce and society. “So when we invest in education, it’s cost-effective because we get a return on our investment.”
Local solutions for homelessness
In expensive Silicon Valley, the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening, a complex issue that concerns Sreekrishnan. She believes that at the local and state level, lawmakers can make it easier to build and permit new housing. “We can allow for more flexibility to make it easier for folks to build housing, we can invest in affordable housing and wraparound support.”
The short-term, transitional element of housing is critical when moving people off the streets and into shelters, says Sreekrishnan, so they can get much-needed mental health and addiction services and job transition services. When lawmakers consider budget priorities, “I think sometimes we forget about that,” she adds.
Is crime out of control in our neighborhoods?
If NextDoor is to be believed, we all live in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
“Folks really don’t feel safe in their neighborhoods,” says Sreekrishnan. “It’s not just hysteria.”
The state has been making investments to deter property crime or smash and grabs that target small businesses and to hold folks accountable, “certainly something we need to continue to do,” she adds.
Sreekrishnan wants to invest in the local public safety system, making sure they have the technology and resources they need. “But we also need to get to the root of these issues, which is getting them in good jobs and with health services.”
Climate change is global, but change starts at the local level
Inspired by the young people she mentors at Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action, the non-profit she co-founded, Sreekrishnan realizes that breaking issues down into smaller chunks slowly chips away at the problem.
Climate change issues seem so big and unsolvable she acknowledges, that it triggers what they call eco-anxiety, especially in students.
“We remind our students that this is a global issue, but it all starts at the local level.” Sreekrishnan is proud of the students “who started with a campaign to get composting at their school sites and to use less single-use plastics at their school sites.” The students then moved to the city level to help update their city’s Climate Action Plan before working on state legislation and helping make climate change education a requirement K-12.
“I think that they’re trusting that their choices and decisions make a difference.”
Lack of resources for the aging community
18% of Santa Clara County’s residents are going to be older than 60 soon with this aging population set to triple by 2030. Aging in place, the norm in most South Asian families and other immigrant communities, becomes challenging as the complexity of needs increases.
Sreekrishnan is advocating for health care clinics that focus on the older adult population, based on assessments to identify gaps in services. She wants to focus on preventative care and affordable health care.
“At senior focus health care clinics, we can make sure our older adults have resources they need for long-term planning and care to support how they navigate the health space.”
“It’s tailored to their unique needs, and culturally competent.”
A Pragmatic and non-partisan candidate
“I’m pragmatic,” says Sreekrishnan who likes to see where everyone’s coming from, to address these issues. “I like to look at our basic issues around getting folks housed, making sure we have transportation, infrastructure, making sure we have good jobs, making sure we can give children a high-quality education. And these are nonpartisan issues.”
She emphasizes getting back to the basics. “I don’t think any solution is way far to the left or way far to the right.” The problem is what are we willing to pay for and what we are willing to prioritize.
It’s crucial to have smart money management, says Sreekrishnan. “What folks can agree on both sides is, when we’re investing in something, we want to see the outcomes. We want transparency and accountability.”
“So I really stand firm in that belief, I think we need to scrutinize and optimize our spending to ensure every dollar invested translates to tangible outcomes.”
A legislator and community leader
To go from grassroots community leader to effective legislator needs community input.
“That’s the type of legislator and staffer I am and want to be,” says Sreekrishnan. “It starts with coffees in the district and talking to people. The bills that I mentioned all came from community conversations. Seeing where people are hurting, how we can help them.”
Sreekrishnan makes sure she is accessible. “My job is to hear from people and I’m someone who really digs deep and works grassroots in the community to create that change, to get that bill signed into law to get that program up and running. And so that’ll continue to be my focus.”