Most school board elections are decided by a small number of votes. And most 18-25 year olds don’t vote in school board elections.
But what if they did? How many school boards could they flip, even in red districts?
That’s the idea behind our Guide to Student-Led Candidate Town Halls. Developed by Laiba Effendi, one of our Youth Advisory Board members, the idea is simple: High school students plan and run a town hall with the candidates running for school board in their district. Only students attend, and only students ask the candidate questions.
That’s what Laiba did in her Texas town. Let her tell you how it went:
Our virtual session ended up with 200+ students and all 7 of our board candidates in attendance… The impact it made in student interest in our school board was incredibly clear… Underclassmen in our student council volunteered to host the event again the following year. On a district level, we had student engagement in policy grow, with students attending a board meeting to petition against discrepancies in students’ gpa-based ranking (a lot of them were students who had attended the town hall!). I hope that this continued tradition will change students’ mindsets to approach local elections with determination and purpose instead of apathy or hopelessness.
If you’re a high school student, or you know one, and you want to make this happen in your community, just download our new Guide to Student-Led Candidate Town Halls. It’s got everything you need to start planning today.
To make it even easier, if you use the form to the right (or below on mobile phones) and tell us about your plans, you could get up to $100 toward flyers, refreshments, or anything else you need to make your student-led candidate town hall a success.
Don’t wait — your school board members should answer to the students they serve.