After being the ASB freshman representative during his freshman year, senior David Kim went on to be ASB vice president during junior year and is currently ASB president. Kim will continue his legacy of advocacy by leading the sixth annual student advocacy trip to Sacramento on March 15.

Appointed by adviser and social studies department chair Jon Resendez, Kim will share his prior experiences to support the new advocates, according to Kim.

After an application and screening process, six upperclassmen have the opportunity to share policy ideas affecting students in California with legislators.

“I have really seen what impacts our students and staff and what IUSD faces,” Kim said. “So when I had this opportunity senior year, I thought it was a great opportunity to speak and advocate for issues that I’m passionate about and issues my teachers and peers are passionate about as well.”

His experience in ASB has exposed Kim to these district-wide issues, one of which involves a lack of funding. Having experience with school-granted budgets in ASB as well as using his role as president to talk to various groups and clubs on campus, Kim said the issue became important to him.

“I have been speaking to a lot of groups on campus and have learned a lot about what their needs are and how to represent them and how to manage the best interests of the groups because it’s really difficult,” Kim said. “Everything we do relies on funding and how we can use it to support students and staff.”

Kim said that he hopes to show legislators at the Capitol issues such as inconsistent annual budgets for essential school programs and staff shortages.

“These things kind of culminated, and I wanted to take action in a way where I know it will effect change or help those in the community,” Kim said. “Not everybody has the opportunity to go to the Capitol and speak on the behalf of others, so it’s really important to talk to others in order to speak on behalf of other people.”

The state government’s legislative process is not very clear-cut, so it is especially important that new student advocates get to learn more about the experience from a returning advocate, according to Kim.

“It was really interesting learning about the experiences of other people as well as their inputs because I’ve learned there’s a lot of diversity in opinions, especially by interacting with other students at other schools,” Kim said. “Just going up there knowing you’ve been preparing for this and you’re bringing all of these voices with you to the Capitol is just something that’s unparalleled.”