The average age of a Syracuse City School District Board of Education commissioner is between 50 and 60 years old.

But that doesn’t matter to Caleb Duncan, who just graduated from Henninger High School in Syracuse last spring. Now a freshman political science major at Syracuse University, Duncan is running for one of four seats opening up for election on the Syracuse City School Board this year.

Even though Duncan may be an old soul, he’s embracing his youth as a central component of his campaign platform, which he’s given the slogan “vision and perspective.” The word perspective stems from his added point of view as a student, and his vision is influenced by a desire for universally accessible education.

“Young people are overlooked as being less able than everybody else at the table,” said Duncan, a freshman political science major. “That’s a view that we need to turn around and kind of work to establish a better sense of student voice and student input.”

Duncan’s campaign began when he submitted a letter of intent to the local Democratic Party last month. Taylor Dunne, a freshman political science major and chief of staff for Caleb Duncan, will serve as an organizer, as well as moral support, when he vies for an endorsement by the Democrats, then competes in the primaries and finally, is placed on the ballot in the general election.

Dunne said she wasn’t surprised when she walked into a local school board committee meeting and found everyone to be too “adult-y.” But Dunne also said Duncan is more like 58 years old than 18, as evidenced by his typical uniform of a suit and tie.

Early on in high school, Duncan fought to make his and his classmates’ voices heard, creating one of the first student unions in the Syracuse area, he said. He later earned a spot on Superintendent Sharon Contreras’ cabinet, a group of students who advocate for issues in the schools they represent, said Commissioner David Cecile.

While at Henninger, Duncan worked to establish a disciplinary code of conduct for the high school long before the district adopted its own uniform code of conduct this year, said Cecile, who served as Henninger’s principal while Duncan was still a student there.

“In fact, I think his code of conduct for Henninger served as a role model for the code of conduct for the district,” Cecile said.

Discipline practices in the district are still an area of concern for Duncan, but he said he also plans to advocate for the expansion of English as a Second Language programs, as well as emphasizing the value of career and technical education.

Several months ago, Duncan said he was sitting on a bus leaving the Centro hub downtown heading to his home in the Eastwood neighborhood. He overheard a group of students from the Public Service Leadership Academy, which is a career and technical high school that’s phasing out Fowler High School, and asked them about their classes.

“For the most part it was positive feedback,” Duncan said. “They enjoyed what they were doing.”

He said this pride in education is a crucial value for students to harness opportunities and succeed. Especially, Duncan said, when they are constantly pushing against the stereotype that city schools are inherently bad.

“For me going to Henninger, it was always ‘Oh, you went to Henninger, oh that must be rough,’” Duncan said. “I didn’t think so — I really liked all the people I was around. I had a lot of opportunities that opened up for me, and I think that that’s something everybody needs to see —that if you want it, it’s there.”

Now, in order to pay those experiences forward, Duncan will work on gathering community support, which Dunne said they hope will come from a mix of both young and old voters.

Bernie DeMott, who taught Duncan in ninth grade, said she “trusts him implicitly” with his campaign, particularly his desire for students to experience the good in public schools. His youth provides him with a rare optimism to follow through and believe in his goals, DeMott said.

“Of all the students I’ve taught, he was the one that I knew would stay and roll up his sleeves and try to make the community better,” DeMott said. “He’s very vested in Syracuse and he believes he can make change.”

The list of 13 Democratic candidates running in the election is diverse and impressive, Cecile said. Three incumbents will be on the ticket, but Cecile said he doesn’t think Duncan will have difficulty finding constituencies to back him.

Duncan’s mother is a teacher in the district, so he still has strong ties to members of the education community, Cecile said. He could also find support from recent high school graduates and parents of children enrolled in local schools, he added.

“I think there’s support and I really believe that on the Board of Education, you don’t want all the same type of people on there,” Cecile said.

And what makes Duncan different from the other commissioners is not a disadvantage, Dunne, his chief of staff, said. Duncan is someone who has lived through many of the policies the board has implemented, and would provide a voice that the board needs, she said.

This need for his perspective, rather than the power the position holds, is why Duncan said he became compelled to run even before he knew there was space for him on the board.

This year, he just felt the time was right.

“I don’t really want to do this for my whole life, I just thought that, you know, it would be a good thing to do,” Duncan said. “And if I get the chance to serve, then I’ll give back.”

Published on March 19, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Annie: apalme05@syr.edu