Student-run school board candidates’ forum at Fremont High School on Oct. 22, 2024.
Credit: Louis Freedberg / EdSource
While most attention in the United States is focused on the presidential elections today, I’ll be watching two local school board races that will be historic for a completely different reason.
For the first time, young people aged 16 and 17 in Oakland and nearby Berkeley will be voting in school board elections.
Although some smaller communities in Maryland have extended a limited vote to a similar age group, Oakland with a population of over 400,000, is the largest community in the nation to do so by far.
The initiative came about as a result of youth organizing that put pressure on their city councils to place measures on the ballot allowing young people aged 16 and over to vote in their local school board elections. Berkeley voters passed a law approving the change in 2017 and…
