Seventeen-Year-Old Running For School Board
BY BUDDY NEVINS
You don’t need a degree to be a Broward Count School Board member. There is no age requirements, either.
That’s good for Raymond Adderly III.
Raymond Adderly III
The 17-year-old School Board candidate won’t graduate high school until next year, just a few months before the August 2022 election.
He is running for the seat currently held by member Donna Korn.
Adderly may be short on traditional experience, but he has lived a lot of life already.
Some of it is tragic.
His father, an aspiring rapper, was killed in front of him during a 2010 Miramar home invasion. He was seven.
That’s the headline grabbing story guaranteed to get more attention for Adderly during the campaign.
But Adderly has so much more to offer.
Voters lucky enough to hear him may be surprised that he is a more polished and more anchored speaker than many older candidates.
Those speaking skills helped get him named the School Board’s Student Advisor, chosen to represent the voice of students at Board meetings. It is a prestigious position.
He is also class president at Fort Lauderdale High.
Adderly says those roles helped him to understand that the education establishment too often brushes aside the opinions of those in the classrooms.
Amen to that!
He blasts the “never-ending bureaucrats” that dominate today’s decision-making. He pledges as a Board member to end that insider dominance and put the views of teachers, students and parents first.
Here is the line voters will remember:
“I know what it is like to walk the school hallways, pass a course, listen to fellow students, talk with teachers in classrooms on a daily basis,” he says. “I’ll be the voice for the voiceless in the system.”
A powerful campaign theme. And he sticks to that theme no matter what he is asked.
Like a practiced professional politician, he circles around every question to end up back at his overall message: A larger voice for students, teachers and parents.
It’s amazing focus for any first-time candidate, much less a teenager.
Maybe learned to keep his focus through school debating. Maybe through working for the Joe Biden campaign last year.
It was during Biden’s campaign that he met a Sarasota public relations executive, who has already gotten him on NBC’s Today Show and publicity in some other national and statewide outlets.
The Big Media is good to drum up contributions, but Adderly will win or lose in Broward. Korn’s seat is countywide and campaigning will be a punishing slog from Parkland to Hallandale Beach. There are roughly 1.277 million voters in Broward, more than many states.
Adderly knows his biggest negative is the very thing that is shining the national spotlight on his campaign: His age.
He is preparing for the questions.
“They will say I’m too young…Any person who makes my age an issue are literally laughing at hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and parents who want a voice,” he says.
Adderly concedes that many believe that his campaign is a long-shot. Especially if the veteran Korn, who hasn’t opened a reelection campaign yet, decides to run.
But he says he has nothing to lose.
Regardless of what happens, he will be only 18 on Election Day. He can always run for something else in the future.
“I’m still going to college to get my political science degrees and still going to law school to be a lawyer,” he said. “I’m not going away.”
So it’s a win win. That’s a great place for anybody to be, much less a teenager.
August 13th, 2021 at 8:37 pm
At first I thought this was Chief Frank Adderley son.I was just about to send a check for his campaign.Regardless,good luck to him.
August 13th, 2021 at 9:22 pm
Love the energy!
August 15th, 2021 at 7:58 am
How can the young man go to college and deal with a job on the School Board? It is an unrealistic wish.
August 16th, 2021 at 12:09 pm
This young man is poised to represent the people who have not been represented in the past – those in the classrooms. Decisions made by people who are 20 years past their own classroom experience do not affect them personally. I love the idea of a very young representative on the school board! There are enough older members to protect their constituents from frivolous ideas they may attribute to youth, but they need to look beyond themselves. Students and teachers need to be represented by someone who lives the consequences of their decisions. I love this idea!
August 19th, 2021 at 7:19 am
Outstanding !! Good Luck Raymond !!
August 19th, 2021 at 6:40 pm
Well, he couldn’t do a WORSE JOB than the current crop of clowns
August 26th, 2021 at 6:55 pm
He says he’ll be the voice of us parents, but is holding a protest at the school against parents who are for CHOICE regarding face masks, as the school board is breaking the Parents Bill of Rights Law & the Governor’s EO??? Nah! We don’t need anymore liberals on the school board!
September 1st, 2021 at 6:50 am
Michael Conner- most parents want to protect their kids. Most parents want mask mandates. This makes me want to vote for him even more.