East York’s representative on the Toronto Catholic District School Board has come out in favour of a student initiative to lower the age of voting for school trustees in municipal elections.
Ward 11 Trustee Angela Kennedy was responding to Elizabeth Seredinina, a high school student from Bishop Allen Academy, and a representative of the “Catholic Student Leader Impact Team” — who told last week’s board meeting that it’s time to lower the voting age for board of education elections to 16.
“Students deserve to have their voice heard through trustees,” Seredinina said.
Currently, the age requirement is 18, which gives few high schoolers a say in who’ll sit on the school board.
“I think that students are engaged in politics, it seems at a younger age — just evidenced by the most recent federal elections,” Kennedy said in her support of Seredinina. She added that her own sons were politically aware at 16, and she wishes that they had been able to vote then.