In Anne Arundel County, the student member of the Board of Education has the same voting rights as the adult members. For a school system with more than a $1.1 billion operating budget, 10,000 employees and 80,000 students, that’s substantial power.
As of July 1, Anne Arundel’s school board is likely to be divided equally among its adult members by party identification. By then, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) will have appointed four of its eight adult members.
The result is that the next student member of the board will potentially be the board’s swing vote. That is, the student member could be not only one of nine votes, but the decisive vote, just as Anthony Anthony Kennedy often is on the nine-member Supreme Court.