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Asuka Conyer: business-casual confidant
Writing and graphics by News and Feature Editor Ahna Rader
At the age of 19, Asuka Conyer is walking the fine line between adolescence and adulthood, making her the ideal candidate to facilitate the connection between NTPS students and staff. Conyer is a Black, Asian- American young woman in the LGBTQ community who’s bringing something new to the table: youth leadership. “I offer that unique perspective of bridging the gap, especially being someone that just came out of highschool in this adult limbo but also being someone that can reconnect the student body to the district body,” she said.
One year ago Conyer graduated from River Ridge High School among family, friends and peers, the class of 2020. Her highschool career had finally come to a close after twelve long years. But yet, deep down, she felt her work wasn’t over yet. “It’s one thing to be a student and make that difference internally within the student body and [another] to take it home and make that change of leadership at our school, and to make that change in our community,” said Conyer. “Especially now being an alumni to the BSU now and seeing the issues they’re still going through makes me so upset. I was still going through that and it’s still going on.”
However, Conyer’s influence as a student within the school system is not to be disregarded. Her middle school history teacher, Katie Agren, vividly remembers Conyer’s pre-teen passion and skill in fiery debates. “I taught students parliamentary procedure in order that they could run their own constitutional convention. They could create motions and amend their motions and write their own constitutions that way. Later on in that school year, it was SBA testing season and [...] I was stressed because it was getting towards the end of the school year and we really needed to finish up this chapter in the textbook,” Agren said. After a long day of state testing, Agren broke it to their students that they’d have to prepare for some unwarranted note-taking. “They took the parliamentary procedure I had taught them earlier in the school year and used it against me. She [Conyer] took on that leadership role on her own and led the class in a mini rebellion for the good of the whole,” Agren reminisces. “She’s certainly not shy about expressing her voice and her opinion. Having her as an eighth grader reading her writing I know that she can make a strong claim but she also thinks through other perspectives. She does her research,” Agren said.
Conyer’s outspokenness didn’t necessarily make it easy for her in highschool, as she was typically regarded as the “political girl” at River Ridge. “I feel like personally I’m a goofball,” She said. In fact, for a woman in politics, Conyer’s about as eclectic as you can get. “I love teaching dance. It’s one of my favorite things ever. Being with kiddos and in such a positive atmosphere. Creative outlets offer Conyer refuge from the corporate world she works in day-to-day. “It’s nice to express myself through more uplifting ways,” Conyer shares.
Her brand of carefree joy will definitely translate into her campaign, which officially began May 17th. “I want to have some fun with this and make it not about me, but an opportunity for students to come together. I don’t see this campaign as being my campaign. I see it as an excuse to group together and empower students in the community, train them and show them that this is possible. I’d like to be the lab rat. I didn’t get here by myself if anything everybody else helped me get here and if there isn’t any other way I would do it except bring everybody else for the ride,” Conyer said. Hold on tight, because she’s just getting started.
With one quick google search you can find that the only requirements for being a school board member are to be 18 years of age and a registered voter. “Whenever we hear about a school board position or district position it’s always geared towards adults in the community, but never geared towards students that are 18 and want to take on these leadership roles,” said Conyer , “I don’t want [NTPS] students to stray away from these positions thinking ‘I’ve got to have a degree’ or ‘I have to have my life set,’ because there’s a lot of students that are so mature, not because of their age but because of the experiences they’ve had and the things they’ve went through.”
Conyer’s campaign is based on a foundation of empowering youth to take control of their educational experience. In our district, several youth consolation groups exist as “advisory councils” but Conyer believes that these groups have been essentially ineffective in addressing student’s real needs. “When I was in high school I found myself frustrated [that] I was being applauded for speaking, instead of being listened to. Being a school board member and having that leadership position would change that dynamic. I’m not asking for a gold sticker. I'm here to make change. There’s a sense of empowerment to be able to take back these leadership roles." she claims. Conyer aims to end the stigma that professionalism is exclusively embodied by grown-ups. “Even if I don’t get the seat, one of the things I’d be happiest about is to show that it’s possible.
The minute you’re 18 you can do it, there’s nothing holding you back.”
If Conyer got the position, she would be one of the youngest school board members in the country. Her youth doesn’t just make her campaign impressive: she sees it as her strength. “The biggest issue is that their [the school board] perspective of what a highschool
environment looks like and what it looks like sitting in a classroom right now is so different generationally because the only perspective they might have is the times that they walk into visit or from when they were in highschool,” Conyer outlines, “Different generations have so many unique experiences and even today, in our generation, we’re going through a pandemic, literal riots, societal changes in the number of hate crimes and racism.”
During her time at River Ridge, Conyer was integral in the launching of the first NTPS Black Student Union that led to a district coalition. That’s where she met Christine Tran, advisor of the River Ridge BSU and art teacher. To this day, they’ve maintained a relationship founded on a passion to see change implemented in our schools. Upon the public release of the district’s student growth monitoring, which was broadly interpreted as ignoring Asian students' status as people of color, Conyer rushed back to River Ridge to check on her past teachers and peers. Tran and Conyer were similarly infuriated by the situation and angry with district leaders for letting it happen. “Me and Ms. Tran we’re so frustrated and she was like ‘You know what Asuka, you should run for school board,’” Conyer said. And that was it, Conyer’s youth grassroots campaign was born.
Communication is Conyer’s first order of business if she becomes the next District 3 School Board member. Being on the same page is foundational for reform, something Conyer believes North Thurston Public Schools needs a lot of. “It’s one thing to tackle systemic racism and all these other issues but if we can’t communicate on them, we can’t solve them, we can’t resolve them, we can’t find a common ground. If we don’t create accessible platforms for students it’s just not possible. It would be us trying to solve other people’s problems with no perspective. Right now the district is trying to solve black issues and LGBT issues through a white heterosexual perspective and it just doesn’t work,” She said.
Conyer embodies all of these missing perspectives, as each day she lives life of a gay person of color. “Her interest is in representing those voices that aren’t able to represent themselves or those that are seldom heard when they do speak out. “With her experience, she’s coming from a place of authenticity and not saviorism,” said Tran. “Authenticity is something that you act on, because it’s something that directly affects you and something that you have lived,” Conyer said, “you can tell the difference between saviorism and authenticity by time.” Conyer has been pursuing social justice as she describes it, since she was “out the womb.” Her motive is in instigating real change, not just looking busy.
While still deeply rooted in the North Thurston public school system, Conyer is now taking on a post-high school education at University of Washington Tacoma. She is pursuing both pre-law and sociology with dreams of becoming a juvenile attorney. “I would love to do something that still has to do with being a carrier of student voices. Being a juvenile attorney I will be able to be there to be like ‘I don’t know what’s going on but tell me what’s going on, I’m here to listen and I’m here to give you everything I can to represent you in whatever situation need be,’” she said. Conyer wants to be the supporter she never had. The issues she prioritizes: race equity, sexual harassment and redefining the student-district relationship, aren’t ideas that could be easily implemented, but she finds them dire. What we allow to happen in our schools, will continue to happen outside of them. “In her time through the K-12 system she [Conyer] has been a part of meetings at the capitol with senators addressing issues like gender bias and sexual harassment not only in the schools but in general. She has been prolific in the BLM movement and the racial justice movements and although all of those have connections to education, they’re not limited to that and Conyer’s definitely not limited to the institute of education. She sees the connection to what's happening in the institute of education to what’s happening in the rest of our society,” said Tran.
Asuka Conyer's campaign of open communication and proud diversity confronts North Thurston Public Schools with everything it's missing. “One of the biggest issues that we had [in highschool] was that we didn’t have support at the district level,” she said, “I would be able to be that one person, someone at the district level they can trust.”
