Allison Toledo – 2013-14

Name: Allison Toledo

Graduation year: 2015

School year she served as the student rep: 2013-14

Hometown: Hillsdale

How being the student rep impacted her: “I think being the student rep was one of the most impactful things I did when I was in high school for a few reasons…it’s a huge responsibility that’s very different from other clubs or other things that you can do. It’s one of the first times I think that you’re really at the table with people who are older than you, and they’re talking about things that might be outside of your scope when you’re a student in high school, and it’s really cool to get to sit in on those and to be an active participant in many cases. And it definitely does still impact me today. I think it was one of my first experiences with being the youngest person in the room and particularly in a room of decision makers. And there’s a huge value in doing that and learning how to find your voice and speak up in those types of scenarios. And that in particular helped me in college, [and] it helped me in the jobs that I’ve held and it helps me to this day in my job. I can’t really overstate how formative that was. It was excellent and one of my favorite parts of my high school experience.”

PV involvement (besides Student Council): Model UN, Chamber Choir

PV memory: “I really loved participating in chamber choir. I love the friends that I made in that space—a lot of really just excellent people who all really cared about singing. [Choir Director Argine Safari] fostered a really incredible environment among the students there, one that was just really [accepting and open to] trying all kinds of different musical styles. I could pop into her room at any point in time and just hang out, it was great. So I really love the sort of atmosphere and friendship we created, and especially when we went to Ireland, it just sort of intensified, which was awesome. I also have really wonderful memories just with the staff. I love the history department. I think everyone there is incredible. So Kosch, Jasper, Walter, Jerome, Orlak—they all are just so good at their jobs. And so they created such an important environment for me to be able to figure out what I enjoyed and what I was hoping to study.”

Favorite PV teachers: Walter, Jerome, Safari

Post-high school path: “After PV, I went to Harvard. I studied social studies…it’s basically a mix of government, history, sociology, [and] a little bit of economics. Specifically within social studies, my focus field was on work and identity—how what we do kind of affects the way we view ourselves as people and the way we interact with others in the world. So I really loved that. And I graduated in 2019 with honors and also got a minor in global health and health policy…I moved to DC [and] I worked as a paralegal at a plaintiff side employment discrimination law firm, [working on] race and gender discrimination cases. I did that for about three years, [then] did a few months at a plaintiff side law firm as a legal assistant doing consumer product liability cases.”

What she’s up to now: “I work as an assistant to the deputy director as assistant in education, income, maintenance and labor at the Office of Management and Budget in the White House…It’s a huge honor to get to serve. The Office of Management and Budget is in the Executive Office of the President. It’s a sort of larger group and it’s been great. It’s been a real honor.”

Future plans: “I actually want to go to law school at some point. I’m hoping to go next year, but I would like to stay in my current position for at least another year. And that’s the goal I really enjoy. I really enjoy the legal field. And I have to say, a lot of the people I interacted with on the board of education were lawyers, and I really looked up to them and it was one of many things that kind of sparked my interest…I am very interested in employment law, which is what I did for a while…I was paralegal to part of teams that were on cases…on behalf of people who allege that they were discriminated against based on their race or their gender…I felt that I found that work really fulfilling to help people who had been harmed. And I would love to be able to do that as a lawyer…I also love DC, I’ve loved living here. I also really love New Jersey, so I could see myself going back….I’m mostly in DC now but for the past few years have split my time between New Jersey and DC a lot and I could see myself ending up in either of those places more permanently.”

Advice for future student reps: “I would say just speak up. I kind of regret not being a little bit more vocal until later. I think by the time I felt ready to kind of speak up a little bit more on things that I wasn’t technically supposed to speak out on, it was sort of towards the end of my tenure, so I kind of lost a lot of time observing and watching and understanding the dynamics. And I think future student rep should just dive right in. Because the worst that can happen is someone says no or that now’s not the time to talk and that’s fine—you’ll wait. So I do think that that’s something I hope future reps take away from it. I wish I had done a better job of getting the pulse of the student body…[Buchanan] kind of gets the updates from the faculty, synthesizes them, and then has the student rep read it. That’s wonderful. That’s great. It doesn’t leave as much room for student input in the same way, and so my advice would be to try to get that student input however you can, either in concert with Buchanan or in concert with just talking to other students.”

Advice for high school students: “I think that being yourself is the most powerful thing you can be in high school, because if you can be yourself in high school, you can be yourself anywhere, right? It’s potentially the hardest place to not put on a face or not put on a kind of different persona for a bit. So if you can, just really stay as true to yourself as you can…whether that’s in the clubs that you’re involved in, whether that’s in school, whether that’s in just your interests and your hobbies or things or books you like. If you can stay true to yourself in that realm, staying true to yourself in every other aspect of life becomes 10 times easier because high school is really hard.”