Maryland high court weighs constitutionality of student school board members

Attorneys for public school parents and the Howard County Board of Education battled before Maryland’s top court Tuesday over the constitutionality of having high school students serve as voting members of school boards and having nonvoting-age pupils elect those members.

Anthony M. Conti, pressing the parents’ case, told the Court of Appeals that the student members’ service on the boards and election by fellow pupils violates the Maryland Constitution’s mandates that voters be at least 18 years old and that those in elected office be registered voters.

These constitutional requirements are at their height in instances involving the “direct election” of individuals seeking “a position of general governmental power,” such as a seat on a school board...

...But Conti said the students’ election to boards violates Article 1, Section 1 of the Maryland Constitution, which provides that “every citizen of the United States, of the age of 18 years or upwards, who is a resident of the state … shall be entitled to vote in the ward or election district in which the citizen resides.”

He also cited Article 1, Section 12, which provides that a person is “ineligible” to hold elective office in the state if he or she “was not a registered voter … on the date of the person’s election.”

Because high school students who have not reached 18 cannot vote, they cannot serve on the school board, Conti said.

The General Assembly tried to develop a “very creative way” to foster student participation on school boards but “it is not the legislature’s prerogative” to usurp the state constitution’s minimum age requirement regarding voting and holding office, said Conti, of Conti Fenn LLC in Baltimore.

https://thedailyrecord.com/2021/11/09/md-high-court-weighs-constitutionality-of-student-school-board-members/