Once Homeless Student is Running for Denver School Board

Tay Anderson is a visionary school board candidate in Denver, Colorado with Midwestern roots coming from Kansas City. As a child, he grew up with the responsibility of caring for his grandmother from a young age. His freshman year, Tay moved to Thomas Jefferson High School. By sophomore year, Tay had entered foster care because his father was absent and his relationship with his mother was rocky.

“Being homeless has shaped me into the man I am today and it’s helped me mature, exposed me to a new view on life.”

Attending a prep academy, Anderson learned, “how to be a man and not a statistic.” He exhibited leadership as the Student Body president of the alternative school that year. This led him to pursue the student board of education and become a prep high school representative. From there he attended Manual High School, met the principal, and partnered with him in student voice fashion to take the student board from a mere 3 to a whopping 50 students.

Tay’s high school college success team helped prepare him most for college.

“I was in a hard situation because my GPA wasn’t the best and I had to make sure that I got into college. I wanted to make sure I made my grandma proud.”

By 2015, Tay was sharing with a group of 1,200 educators and in 2016 when he said he was running for School Board, he was met with the laughter of the same group. Both a candidate and an activist in his community, Tay speaks at Anti-Trump rallies. This has given him a large outreach and social capital that is not without it’s own unique challenges.

Even though his focus is on changing the community and catalyzing larger national change through leading by example, he still contends with the widespread notion that all politicians are greedy and desire power instead of change.

Tay’s life experience has shown that he understands the experience of being marginalized and blatantly ignored by institutional powers, but his leadership and dedication to student voice show that he is dedicated to using his voice to change it.

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Student Voice is in pursuit of student representation. To learn more about this campaign, read this Medium post or follow along on Twitter.

*This post in no way supports, endorses or materially opposes any political candidate, member or party. Views expressed by subjects of Students of America posts are their own and do not represent the views of STUDENT VOICE, INC.