MoCo school board swears in 49th student member of the board

July 7, 2026 10:15 a.m.

Leul Dawit, a student at Northwood High in Rockville, was sworn in as the 49th member of the board Monday evening for a one-year term. Photo credit: Ashlyn Campbell

As his first speech as the 49^th Student Member of the Board on Monday evening, rising junior Leul Dawit wanted to highlight who he represents.

“Every single [school is] filled with stories, stories of students who would sit alone in class at lunch or on the bus, wondering if anyone would notice if they just disappeared,” Dawit told the dozens in attendance in Montgomery County Board of Education’s Rockville meeting room. “Those stories don’t fit into board agendas. They aren’t written in the contracts, memos, or policies, but behind all the statistics, votes, and policies we will deliberate going forward into the next year, there are people behind them.”

Dawit, a student at Northwood High in Rockville, was sworn in as the 49^th member of the board Monday evening for a one-year term, taking over from Anuva Maloo, a senior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring.

The 16-year-old won the election with 64% of the votes cast by 58,424 by middle and high school students, according to an April press release from Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). His opponent, Walter Johnson High School rising senior Reemey Ghermay, received 36% of the vote.

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The student member of the board (SMOB) is a voting member of the school board and can weigh in on topics such as collective bargaining, capital and operating budgets, and school closings, reopenings and boundaries, but cannot vote on negative personnel actions. While the position is unpaid, the student receives a $25,000 college scholarship, student service learning hours and one honors-level social studies credit.

A student from Northwood hasn’t served on the board since the position was established in 1978 and won by inaugural member David Naimon, who graduated in 1979 and is now the president of the Montgomery County Board of Elections. While Northwood High was closed from 1985 to 2004 due to low enrollment, more than half of student board members have come from four high schools: Rockville’s Richard Montgomery, Walt Whitman in Bethesda and Springbrook and Montgomery Blair in Silver Spring.

Northwood is currently being housed in what will eventually be the Woodward High School at 11211 Old Georgetown Road in Rockville building while its Silver Spring building undergoes reconstruction. Woodward High and the new Northwood High building are set to open in August 2027.

In April, Dawit told Bethesda Today that he has been working in student leadership since he attended Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, where he campaigned to be the vice president of the school’s Student Government Association in fourth grade.

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Since then, Dawit has served as a field organization deputy for MoCo for Change, a youth social justice advocacy group, as well as a certified workshop presenter for the Maryland Association of Student Councils and an environmental education deputy for Eco MoCo, a student led environmental nonprofit. He also serves as student leadership coordinator for Students For Asylum and Immigrant Rights (FAIR) and as a historian for the Montgomery County Regional Student Government Association.

On Monday, Dawit told Bethesda Today he was feeling “raw excitement” after being sworn in. Dawit said he wanted to start by examining appeals to the board, which can concern decisions related to student residency, grades, transfers and discipline, and the upcoming elementary school boundary study.

In the board meeting room, Dawit said the oath he took on Monday wasn’t meant for one person, it “belonged to every student across Montgomery County.”

“This next year is by no means going to be easy, but one thing I’ve learned throughout this journey. … Leadership isn’t measured by the title you hold or the power that comes with it. It’s measured by the people you inspire to believe they belong here next,” Dawit said. “Another 50 years from now nobody is ever going to remember every meeting we attended or every vote we cast on the board. They’ll remember whether we left the school system better than we found it and that is the responsibility I accept tonight.”

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine