SAN DIEGO UNIFIED STUDENT TRUSTEES WANT A VOTE

Members want louder voice on district board

For years, San Diego Unified students have pressed for more recognition and a louder voice on the district’s board of education, noting that they are by far the largest constituency that the board’s decisions affect directly.

Their first major victory came in 2019, when the school board created a high school student trustee position. Three years later, the board added a second student trustee.

And last month, they achieved one more milestone: The board voted to pay student trustees as much as it does all other board members, $1,736 a month. Student trustees will also receive elective course credit for their service.

San Diego Unified board members and administrators had successfully advocated for Assembly Bill 275, which was signed into law in October, allowing school districts and county boards of education to compensate student board members with stipends, elective course credit or both.

About two-thirds of the California school districts that serve high school students have a student board member, according to the office of state Assemblymember Chris Ward, D-San Diego, who introduced AB 275. In San Diego Unified, student trustees are elected to one-year terms by the district’s high school student body.

San Diego Unified trustees say compensating student trustees is about more than money. It’s a matter of equality, they said Friday at a forum discussion with journalists at Lincoln High School.

“It’s the symbolic idea that we are finally being recognized,” said San Diego Unified Trustee

Matthew Quitoriano, a junior at San Diego High School. “But also we know that there’s a lot more that we can do to recognize our students.”

The new law also aims to help even the playing field for students from low-income families who want to join the school board but can’t spare the time because they have to work.

Quitoriano and his colleague, fellow student Trustee Blessyn Lavender Williams, described the time and resources it takes to be a board member.

He estimates he spends 25 to 30 hours a week on board member duties, from answering emails to researching board agenda items. Both he and Williams said they have also had to miss a lot of school.

“But it’s all for a better cause,” Williams said.

Quitoriano said his pay can now help cover some expenses he incurs as a trustee — things like a formal jacket, food after board meetings and transportation to meetings, school visits and other district events, all of which can be costly, especially for a high schooler. He said he has been encouraged to attend out-of-town conferences but hasn’t been able to go because of financial barriers.

“For the first time, I finally have the tools to overcome those by being financially compensated for the work,” he said.

Quitoriano and Williams said the next step should be allowing student trustees to have a vote on the board that is more than merely advisory. Currently California student trustees can only cast “preferential” votes that are not formally factored into board decision-making.

“It is a little ironic when I get paid for work and being part of the board of education when I’m not technically part of the board of education, because I don’t have a vote,” Quitoriano said.

But it would take another new state law to allow student trustees full voting powers. In 2022, former student Trustee Zachary Patterson had advocated for Senate Bill 1236, which would have given student trustees full voting powers for open-session meetings and the right to cast preferential votes during closedsession meetings.

“We are disenfranchising a key constituency in our decision-making around what happens in schools,” Trustee Richard Barrera said. “When we open up enfranchisement for new groups of people, there are people who are threatened by that and feel that they’re losing power as a result.”

Barrera said he thinks it’s unfair that students are required to prove they’re capable of being responsible decision-makers and representatives of constituents, comparing the requirement to how historically disadvantaged groups have been forced to prove they deserve a right to vote.

“If you want a demonstration of the capability of young people to serve in elected office, I mean, my God, listen to these two and compare that, frankly, to a lot of other people in elected (positions) around this country,” Barrera said.

Patterson and Barrera brought to the school board a resolution to support SB 1236 — but in a rare moment of dissent on the usually unanimous board, trustees voted 3-2 against approving it.

Granting full voting powers to student trustees is tricky legally, Ward said. It would be granting the same voting powers to students — who are elected by fellow students, not all of whom are legally able to vote in political elections — as to adult trustees, who are elected by members of the general public who are legally allowed to vote.

On top of that, even if a state law were passed to let districts grant voting powers to students, cities like San Diego have their own charters and rules around elections that would have to be worked out, Ward added.

Short of expanding voting powers, Williams wants greater acceptance and recognition of student board members. Student board members, she said, are still often thought of as less than a trustee.

“We need to redefine how we look at student board members,” she said.