Hana O’Looney was elected as the 44th Student Member of the Board on April 23, 2021, after receiving 78.3 percent of the vote. From adding half-days to the school year in acknowledgement of student and staff workload to implementing free menstrual products in school bathrooms, she has since changed the experience of students, teachers, and staff across Montgomery County.

“I voted for Hana in the SMOB election because I felt she had a lot of experience with student advocacy and would know how to use the SMOB position to get things done,” freshman Julia Chang said. “She also had a track record of accomplishing change and didn’t seem like the kind of candidate to make empty promises.”

O’Looney, who was then a junior at Richard Montgomery, launched her campaign for SMOB in January 2021. Her campaign mainly focused on closing the opportunity gap between schools in Montgomery County, placing importance on the equity of students and staff.

“Seeing some really big issues on inequity across our district, whether it’s new teachers being placed in high poverty schools and more experienced teachers going to wealthier areas of our district, or whether it was courses that were available at each highschool or just engagement from the community in different areas of our district, I really wanted to combat that,” Hana O’Looney said.

Much of her focus on increasing equity was specifically placed on menstrual equity. Even before her election, O’Looney had pushed a bill for statewide requirements to install free menstrual product dispensers in all Maryland public school bathrooms. When this bill failed, O’Looney then testified to the Board of Education to instate this policy in MCPS.

“Put simply, the issue of inaccess to menstrual hygiene is a clear issue of unequal access to education,” O’Looney said during her testimony to Maryland Senators.

As SMOB, O’Looney continued to address menstrual equity issues by beginning the implementation of menstrual products in Montgomery County schools. In Hana O’Looney’s December Newsletter, she introduced MCPS’s plan to bring free menstrual product dispensers to all school bathrooms by October 2025. 

According to the newsletter, “over the summer, two menstrual product dispensers will be installed in every middle and high school, and one product dispenser will be installed in every elementary school by October 2022.”

Shortly after being sworn in on July 1, 2021, O’Looney also started work on what had been another one of her main goals while running–safely returning schools back to normal after almost two years of virtual learning. 

In September 2021, O’Looney helped the Board of Education design new contingency plans in case of state mandates calling for reducing school capacity or switching to virtual learning. In her September SMOB minute, O’Looney also shared her plans to develop requirements for outdoor lunches and masking.

In October 2021, O’Looney furthered her attempts to keep schools safe during the pandemic by meeting with the Board of Education to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for all teachers and winter and spring athletes.

In the midst of the pandemic, mental health became another notable concern. Because of this, Hana O’Looney has also placed importance on dealing with the negative mental health effects of the pandemic on many students and staff. 

“As we navigate this first fully in-person year back, making sure that we’re being really understanding of teachers’ and students’ circumstances and being as flexible as possible has become a big focus for me,” O’Looney said. “There’s been a lot of trauma, and we need to work through that first in order for students to be able to learn.”

In her December Newsletter, O’Looney introduced three new half-days being added to the calendar. These half-days, she wrote in her newsletter, are “in recognition of the added workload on both staff and students this year as we recover from a global pandemic.”

“I’m pretty satisfied with what Hana has done in her term already, with plans she has introduced and voted for, and with her communication about Board of Education meetings and MCPS updates,” Chang said. “Her communication with students has definitely made me more aware of what’s going on in MCPS.