Middle College High School student Sophie Khouri has served as a student trustee for the Contra Costa Community College District Board of Governors for a year. Student trustees serve as a student representative for all students in the district, sitting on the Board of Trustees and ensuring transparency between the governing board and the student. While on the board, they are only given an advisory vote which does not count in determining if an item passes through the legislation, but is recorded in the official minutes. Khouri is about to finish her year as student trustee. As her term comes to an end, The Advocate sat down with her to discuss her advocacy and impact during her time as Student Trustee.
Question: When did you know you wanted to run for this position?
Answer: I decided to run about late March of 2025. I heard about the role through social media. I was already involved with leadership on campus. I founded and am president of the Middle Eastern North African Student Union. And so, because of that, I already had some experience advocating for MENA students on campus, and so when I heard about the role, I was like, why not try to advocate for students across the district? And so I decided to run.
Q: What inspired you to apply for this position?
A: I think one thing that inspired me is just some of the problems I saw around campus. When I started to run, I spoke to some staff members and some students. For example, our basic needs coordinator at CCC—Hope—I talked to her and tried to ask everyone for some advice. One of the things I learned about that was happening at the time is that there had been cuts from the district and a lot of people were affected by that.
So when I saw that happening and how it was affecting everyone, it kind of made me want to go for the position even more, so I could better understand what had happened and how I could fix that.
And then most other things, just wanting to advocate for more funding the basic needs. That was like one of the top things I tried to advocate for: counselors and mental health.
Q: What were the big issues that the district faced this year?
A: I would say one of the main things I know the district was working on during the length of my term was the bond measure, and so they brought to the ballot bond Measure G, which is a facility bond. It would provide, approximately maybe over the next 30 years, $920 million.
It’s actually good because I observed a lot of issues with our facilities across all 3 colleges.I’m in support of it. They tried cutting 4 positions at DVC, 6 positions at CCC.
I think that was kind of a controversial thing because the way it had the main meeting where the vote failed, and then the special meeting after where it was passed. I personally found that really frustrating because I couldn’t attend the special meeting. And then on top of that, it was just such short notice.
Q: What are you proud of in terms of your roll over the past year?
A: I would say I’m most proud of when we got to do legislative visits, so at the end of January we met with seven legislators from across Contra Costa County, including members of the California Senate and Assembly. We got to talk to them and go over specific points of legislation we want them to focus on. I personally got to share a little bit about myself and my role and then also talk about things I want more funding for, like basic needs services and mental health.
Getting to bring all of these stories that I’be heard from students to legislators directly and help inform them. This was definitely one of our biggest highlights.
Q: What are your next steps?
A: I really want to make sure there’s a good transition to the next trustee. During my first meeting, I kind of went into it blindly. I just want to make sure there’s a good transition to whoever takes on the role, and also make sure they’re well informed of everything that’s happened this past year so they have some background on what’s happening, as well as just make sure they’re looking out for certain things because there are things that I’ve pushed for during my role that I won’t be there long enough to actually see happen.
