Meet Amita

Amita Gupta has been a dedicated education advocate, healthcare professional, entrepreneur, and community leader since 1998. As a parent of two children in Wake County Public Schools, she understands firsthand both the opportunities and the challenges facing our district — because she's lived them, right alongside every other Wake County family.

A Decade on the Front Lines of Our Schools

For ten years, Amita has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with school administrators, teachers, staff, and fellow parents — not from the sidelines, but as a hands-on PTA and PTSA leader helping students thrive. She has run programs at schools and within the community that strengthened school finances and community volunteer initiatives in critical areas like student and family nutrition, and led fundraising and engagement initiatives that increased parent and community participation by more than 30% and raised a record $22,000+ with her team in a single year.

Her leadership roles include:

  • President, Mills Park Middle School (MPMS) PTSA
  • Board Advisory Council (BAC) Representative, MPMS
  • Grade Level Chair, MPMS
  • VP of Programs, Horton's Creek Elementary (HCE) School PTA
  • Parent Representative, HCE School Improvement Team
  • Junior Achievement Coach, Fireside Elementary School

Odyssey of the Mind (OM): Coaching the Next Generation of Problem-Solvers

OM is an international educational nonprofit that challenges K–12 and university students to solve open-ended, STEAM-based problems through creative, hands-on competition — writing original scripts, engineering inventive mechanical designs, and thinking on their feet in front of a judging panel at Regional and State tournaments.

Amita has poured years into this program as both a coach and a regional leader:

  • NCOME Board Member, 2024–present
  • OM Coach, 2019–2026, leading K–12 teams across Western Wake County Public Schools
  • Guided teams to NC Regional and State championship-level finishes, earning a spot as an NC delegate to the OM World Tournament — a competition that draws more than 800 teams from across the United States and around the world
  • Coached Mills Park Middle School teams to a top-8 finish at OM World Finals three years in a row, 2023–2025
  • Received the 2024 Omer Award for mentoring more than 10 teams — 20 coaches and 70 students — within the Eastern Region
  • As a Board member, trains teams in hands-on problem-solving, creative thinking, innovation, and life skills — mentoring fellow parent coaches and students across the 19-county Eastern Region: Caswell, Chatham, Cumberland, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Northampton, Orange, Person, Richmond, Scotland, Vance, Wake, and Warren counties

Building Opportunity Beyond the Classroom

With a background in education, healthcare, and community organizing, Amita has championed efforts to grow parent and community engagement across the district — and put her own entrepreneurial energy behind expanding what "opportunity" looks like at every age. She owns Wize Computing Academy of Cary, Apex, and Morrisville, bringing hands-on STEAM and computing education to K–5 students across the area. She also owns the educational branch of Astute Resources, bringing experiential life-skills training to the workforce of clients that include UNC Chapel Hill and corporate partners. Alongside this work, she has worked to expand wellness and nutrition resources so every student has what they need to learn.

Her Belief

Amita believes every child — regardless of zip code — deserves access to a high-quality education, good nutrition, and strong mental and physical wellness. That belief is why she's running for Wake County Board of Education.

Education

MPH, Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

BS (Premed), Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin

BSc (Hons), Life Scieences& Biochemestry, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, India