Maurits E. Acosta is a member of the National PTA Board of Directors, where he also serves on the National PTA Finance Committee. Maurits was born in Netherlands to Cuban parents and has called Miami, Fla., home since 2015.
He is currently a student at Harvard University, where he is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in government with a secondary in educational studies. His PTA journey began at Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School, where he served as a board member of his local unit. From 2022 to 2024, he served as the student representative to the Miami-Dade County Council of PTAs/PTSAs (MDCCPTA). In that role, he founded the Miami-Dade PTA Student Empowerment Committee and helped connect student voices to county-level PTA leadership across one of the nation’s most diverse communities. Simultaneously, he served as a member of the Florida PTA Youth Empowerment Committee, where he brought his experience in student advocacy directly to emerging youth leaders across the state.
During the 2024-2025 school year, Maurits served as the elected Student Advisor to the School Board of Miami-Dade County, where he represented the over 350,000 students of America's third-largest school district. In 2021, he founded Virtutem Populo, Inc. (VP), Miami's largest fully student-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to civic engagement among Florida youth. Through VP, Maurits has rallied dozens of elected officials and leveraged over $120,000 in corporate donations to reach over 6,000 students in pursuit of expanding youth voices in government and promoting active participation in democracy among youth in the Sunshine State. An award-winning advocate for public education, student empowerment and civic engagement, Maurits was named the 2024 National PTA Youth Advocate of the Year and the 2023 Florida Children's Week Youth Advocate of the Year. He continues to pursue his commitment to education and democracy at Harvard.