Young Newark voters engage in School Board election forum

Candidates for the April 15 Newark School Board elections take questions from the community at Bethany Baptist Church, March 13 (Photo by Josie Gonsalves for Public Square Amplified)

Newark, NJ - On April 15, Newarkers, including the new voting demographic of 16-17-year-olds, will vote in the new slate of Newark School Board members. Before this, the candidates make themselves visible and accessible to the voters.

Candidates gathered at Bethany Baptist Church on March 13 to answer questions from the community, including youth moderators for whom this will be their first election.

Every April, the Newark Board of Education holds an election to select candidates to serve a three-year term with oversight responsibility for the development and approval of regulations for the operations of the overall public school system. 

In January 2024, Newark became the first city in New Jersey to lower its voting age from 18 to 16. This legislative change came after the city experienced a shockingly low 3% voter turnout during its 2024 School Board Election. Organizations like Vote16NJ previously called for the state officials to lower the voting age in Hudson County school board elections.

This election is the first in Newark’s history in which 16- and 17-year-olds will be eligible to vote, including those who turn 16 by April 15, when the election takes place. Eleven candidates will run for the three open seats on the nine-member board. Among the candidates is Kanileah Anderson, an incumbent.

Clarity Elections reported that Newark saw only a 3.04% voter turnout during its 2024 School Board Election, with only 6,010 ballots when the city had 197,462 registered voters. For this reason, increasing voter turnout was a significant topic raised at the forum, with Newark NAACP President Deborah Smith Gregory urging students and adults to come together and vote. 

“We know that these times are serious, and we know that we have to come together collectively. We have to come out and vote,” said Gregory. “We have to hold each other accountable. And we have to be willing to have the courage of our conviction to do the things that we say we’re going to do and to act on them and to get other people to stand with us.”

Held at Bethany Baptist Church, the forum featured many young and old members of the Newark community in attendance, eager to take part in the election. The candidates addressed the public’s questions about how they would improve students’ education, what policies they would adopt or revise, and their priorities as Newark’s schools face pending funding cuts by the federal government.

The audience’s questions were presented by the forum’s moderators: Science Park High School students Breanna (Campbell) Quist, Nathaniel Esubonteng, and Devin Mitchell. 

“I believe that all candidates should prioritize what the students believe,” said Esubonteng. “I can’t speak for all the students in the Newark schools… I liked how [the candidates] talked about internships and pushing for students to actually learn about more tactile, more basic learning…. I just wanted for [the] candidates to just listen and find a way to outreach…so they can have good connections with the students.”

With the city’s voting age now at 16, now may be the best time for Newark’s youth to start voting. Eric Plutzer, Ph.D., a political science professor at Penn State University, found evidence that voting behavior is a gradually developed habit that can begin at an early age with a voter’s first eligible election, making civic development a “path-dependent process.” 

He also found that first-time voters could be positively reinforced by their peers’ voting habits. This discovery suggests that Newark students voting in their school’s election could inspire their friends and family to participate in their democracy as well.

“Yeah, I think that it’s just really powerful to see… how you can vote…,” said Esubonteng. “It’s just to empower civic engagement later on in life, and just us, as students, getting into it right now, would just be like more so bringing us into voting and bringing us into democracy. And I just wanted to try to change the 3% voter turnout that it was… and see how students can really change that. How we can have a voice…”

Young Voters Are Eager To Start

According to the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, the city has more than 7,000 16- and 17-year-olds who can now vote. While every one of these eligible students may not vote in the 2025 Board Election, other U.S. towns have shown that their voter turnout could exceed the turnout of older voters in Newark.

For instance, Takoma Park, Maryland, became the first U.S. city to lower the voting age to 16 in 2013. CIRCLE reported that voter turnout for 16- and 17-year-olds that year was 42.1%, over four times the turnout rate of voters 18 and older. 

The turnout in Takoma Park may suggest that young adults ages 16 and 17 are more eager to participate in democratic elections than older adults. It may also suggest that Newark will see a higher turnout from its new eligible voters in the 2025 School Board Election. Devin Mitchell displayed a burning desire to vote and create the social change he wanted for himself and students like him.

“What’s really driving me [to vote] is the constant change that I want to see in my community myself,” said Mitchell. “A lot of times, they may say to us, 'Oh, well, you’re a senior, and you’re gonna leave.’ I really find that it’s important to pave the way for the generations that are coming behind us and what they want to see in their society and change in their community as well.”

Representing The Community

Chalkbeat reported that in December 2024, 70% of Newark students in grades 3-9 fell short of meeting literary standards, and around 82% weren’t meeting math standards. Additionally, Newark’s chronic absentee rate showed that 12.1% of students missed at least 10% of the school year.

In the face of such issues, the candidates in Newark’s School Board Election shared how they would expand academic and work opportunities offered to students in schools. They also discussed how they would promote better health and safety for the students. These proposals promised to make students more inclined to attend school and engage in their studies, improving scores and lowering absentee rates.

While the candidates claimed to prioritize the students first, some attendees felt that the board members must prioritize listening to the people, including the students, to understand the changes they wish to see. This only made the public more motivated to engage in this election and cast their vote. 

Emmanuel Adeola, another high school student in Newark, attended the forum, hoping the candidates would attempt to bridge the perceived inequity in students’ education brought on by AP classes only offered in certain schools.

“I’d say the main focus is dealing with equity in education,” said Adelola. “And AP classes in different schools… because you go to Sscience and have access to so many of the AP classes that students at other schools don’t, your resume automatically looks better, and it’s a public school. It’s supposed to be the same. It’s supposed to be equal.”

Now that he is a registered voter in Newark, Adeola intends to cast his vote to have someone he feels can best represent him on the city’s Board of Education.

“I want someone to represent me. To represent my interests…,” said Adeola. “I believe our opinions should count because we’re the consumers, if you want to say. We’re the people who are funding them because they get funding for the elections they have. We’re the people they should be catering to, and we should have an input.” 

In the end, it’s up to the candidates to represent the voters and improve the quality of Newark’s education system. However, while more Newark students can vote in the School Board Election, it is also up to the voting public to practice their rights and help pave the way for the changes they want to see.