With this year being the first in which 16- and 17-year-olds can vote in Oakland’s school board elections, education leaders are on a mission to register 1,000 students in the city’s school district before next month.
One high school student helps lead this mission.
Abrahr Ahmed is a senior at Latitude 37.8 High School in Oakland. She has taught juniors and seniors about the importance of youth voting. When she heard that people her age could vote for the first time in the school board election, she knew exactly what to do.
“I’m very excited to know that my colleagues were finally able to vote, and they seem very excited,” Ahmed told CBS News Bay Area.
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She and her family founded Latitude High School, a public school, about four years ago. Ahmed said her concern is ensuring public charter schools remain open as she runs in the election.
She added that she wants to make sure her classmates have a voice in the future of their school.
“Charter schools should be given a chance because I think we can learn so much more. Especially at Latitude because it’s a hands-on experience,” Ahmed said.
She was able to join forces with Families in Action Quality Education, whose goal is to enroll as many high school students as possible before the Oct. 21 deadline.
“The voters passed this in 2020. It’s been four years now. It’s time for it to happen,” Sam Davis, president of the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education, told CBS News Bay Area.
“I was joking that no one would listen to me. I’m their father’s age, right? And if I tell them to vote… So it will really be students talking to other students. It will make the difference ” he added.
16- and 17-year-olds in Oakland will now be able to vote this year due to the passage of Measure QQ, after receiving about 2/3rds of the vote.
“We do have two student board members on our board, but legally neither of them count in our decision-making. So it really has an impact to actually let students vote in the elections,” said Davis.
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters said more than 600 high school students in Oakland have registered to vote next month.
And with students like Ahmed leading the way, the push to register more youth voters continues.
At Latitude High School, about a dozen students registered to vote Thursday after participating in Ahmed’s class. More of her classmates told her they would return with the necessary sign-up materials for their registration forms.
“Student leaders are dynamite. Like, they’re very strong. They’re not your average student. They’re really on top of the extracurriculars, academics and college applications,” Davis said.
Ahmed said she was born in Yemen and moved to Oakland with her family when she was about two years old. She calls Oakland home and looks forward to creating change in her community.
After high school she has big ambitions.
“There aren’t many Arabs like me, so if I become a biomedical engineer in the future, I might want to pursue other people like me to maybe make it more diverse,” Ahmed said.
