MIDVALE, Utah — Jackson Lewis is still getting used to his election to the Canyons School Board.
"It’s surreal," he told FOX 13 News in an interview on Monday.
It was just a year ago that Lewis was graduating from Hillcrest High School. Now — at age 19 — the self-described "political nerd" will serve on the nonpartisan school board that oversees that school and others like it in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. He is also believed to be the youngest elected officeholder in Utah.
"I thought, you know, this is a perfect way to get involved. Not just in the political world, but education is just so dramatically important," he said.
Lewis said he was prompted to run as a student when he sat in class and heard discussions about education funding and educator support. He also feels student voices are not always considered or necessarily heard in education policy discussions. Lewis got some campaigning support from his local Democratic party, he said, but he also faced some hurdles knocking on the doors in the district he was running to represent.
"People at first were like, 'Oh, you’re running for office. You’re really young,'" he recalled. "And then we got to talking."
Lewis said he campaigned on issues like addressing chronic absenteeism, boosting teacher salaries, supporting later start times for classroom instruction, more applied learning and free breakfasts and lunches to ensure no one goes hungry.
"Especially when it comes to chronic absenteeism, we need to make sure students want to be in school and feel respected by the people that were there," he said.
But now the optimism of campaigning for office will be replaced by the reality of governing. Lewis said he is prepared for long nights at school board meetings when he takes a seat on the board in January. To achieve his policy goals, he said, he will have to work on them over time and earn support from other school board members. Some of them may involve lobbying the Utah State Legislature.
"I know it’s not just going to happen with a single board meeting, right? Obviously, that’s not how this works," Lewis said. "The reason I keep bringing that up is because people look at me and they see I'm young. I've been called 'naive' quite a few times throughout this campaign. I want to reassure people who elected me I know how difficult this job is."
Lewis' election (returns on Monday show him winning with almost 57% of the vote against two challengers) and his youth also have the potential to shake up the Canyons School District. Lewis can speak from first-hand experience about the impact of the school board's policies on students.
"I think it really reflects the student voice in Canyons School District," Dr. Rick Robins, the school district's superintendent, told FOX 13 News on Monday. "Where he was just a graduate a year ago, I'm just excited to get his views on the district and how we can do better and improve."
Lewis said he has also been contacted by other young people in the Canyons School District and across Utah who are excited about his election and contemplating their own involvement in politics. His advice? Get out and talk to people in your community. He spoke at length about meeting voters who may not agree with everything he campaigned on, but as they talked they would discover they had a lot of common ground.
"I learned so much more than if I just sat online making posts about the election," he said. "Those conversations, those perspectives, getting into actual communities and learning the lived experiences of those folks, it’s going to make me a better politician, it’s going to make me a better board member. Because you know what? You can’t make good decisions unless every single voice in this community — unless they’re not being heard, the decision that’s going to be made is going to suck. And it’s going to suck for all of these people living in these homes if they're not being listened to."
