Let Us Practice Democracy!
The case for giving districts the option to lower the school board voting age to 16.
In 2015, there’s this student-led nonprofit in the Bluegrass—it’s called the Kentucky Student Voice Team. Their high schoolers went into one school and asked a simple question to both students and teachers:
What is the most important issue in your school that you would fix?
Over 230 students responded with the same answer: bullying.
Not a single teacher did.
That small study showed Kentucky something pretty powerful—something that we already know. Students often notice in-school problems better than and before adults do. Not because teachers don’t care, but because students are the ones actually living inside the system every day. We see what works, what doesn’t, and… what gets ignored.
And yet, when it comes to making decisions about schools, students have zero electoral power.
Boards of Education decide safety policies, curriculum, start times, funding priorities, mental health resources, and more. These decisions affect 16- & 17-year-old students every single day. But the people most affected by them—the students—don’t get a vote.
That feels… backwards. You know, when the feedback of stakeholders is secondary, democracies crumble.
That’s where VOTE16KY comes in.
We’re the Kentucky chapter of VOTE16USA, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Our focus is simple: give local school boards the option to let 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in school board elections.
That local control piece matters a lot. Because Kentucky communities are so varied—it’s part of what makes Kentucky Kentucky. What works in Louisville may not make sense in Pikeville. So instead of a mandate, we’re pushing for a framework that lets districts choose.
Why 16?
16-year-olds are already trusted with real responsibilities.
We work jobs, pay sales taxes, and drive cars. The idea that we suddenly become “mature enough” at 18 is kind of arbitrary. How come a 17-year-old has no voice in their own school district, but their 18-year-old friend can somehow vote for president?Voting at 16 builds better civic habits.
If you start voting while you’re still in school—while you’re in a stable environment, learning civics, surrounded by adult support—you’re much more likely to keep voting for the rest of your life.Students are direct stakeholders.
We’re not voting on distant foreign policy or abstract economic theory. We’re voting on who gets to make decisions about the building we sit in for seven hours a day.
The most common thing our team hears on the campaign trail is this:
“Man, youth will save us!”
And maybe they’re right. But we know one thing for certain: we cannot save anything without the support of our adults.
We just want the chance to have a seat at the table.
A small one. In one type of election. About the institution that affects us more than anything else.
And honestly? If schools are supposed to prepare students for democracy, it might make sense to let us practice it.
Democratically yours,
The VOTE16KY Journalism team & Ezra Anglin, Co-founder