Witness: State laws vary widely on student seats on school boards, committee told

A policy analyst from the Education Commission of the States told the House Education Committee on April 14 that state laws vary widely on how school boards include student members, ranging from mandatory student seats in some states to permissive or local-choice approaches in others.

"There are several states with policies that either allow for or require for school boards to include student representation," Hina Koyama said in her testimony to Chair Conley and committee members. Koyama, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States, said her written testimony includes citations and links to the state examples she discussed.

Koyama told the committee that approaches differ in four main ways: whether student members are mandated statewide or merely permitted; how many student members a board must or may have; the process by which student members are selected; and the rights afforded to student members, including access to executive sessions and voting authority.

She cited Massachusetts and New Hampshire as examples of states that require at least…