mock election

Today was Election Day! I hope you all headed out to the polls and cast your ballots.  All first through eighth graders at  NHCS performed their civic duty today by participating in the mock election. It was a blast and I think the students and staff enjoyed it! Thank goodness.

Pat is ready to vote!

Pat, Erica and I stayed late last night getting ready for the event and when I left, I definitely felt better about the entire event. We made a schedule of where Pat and I should be throughout the day and I could visualize how the whole day would go.  This morning, we arrived at seven to set up. We hung up streamers, set up voting booths and played patriotic music as the students walked in. They may have thought we were crazy, especially since Pat was wearing a shirt with a huge flag print on it.

The first group of voters came to the polling location at 8:30 and cast their ballots and it was off and running from there. Fourth and fifth grade came to the voting location, while 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th grade voted in their classes. Sixth grade was lucky and came to computer lab to vote on an electronic ballot.   Regardless of where they voted, they each cast ballots for the At- Large City Council election as well as the Dorchester seat on the Boston City Council.  The staff and our entire City Year team had a chance to vote as well, which I think the staff really enjoyed.  Pat, Erica, Danielle and I counted ballots throughout the day so that we were ready to announce the results before the end of the day.

At 2:45, Pat and I came on the loud speaker and announced that Frank Baker had beat John O'Toole in the Dorchester election and that Ayanna Pressley had the most votes for the  At-Large election. There were four seats for the At- Large election, so we announced all four winners. It was cute because we could hear cheering as we announced the different winners. Overall, it was a great day. I think that before today, I had a negative view of the event because of how it started.  As the day progressed and I could see how much the kids were enjoying it and getting into it, I realized how worth it the event was.

Joy/Ripple of the Day*- watching K and JS in sixth grade talking about each candidate and the different issues they support.  K was going through and saying stuff like "well this person supports gay rights and education" while JS was saying "but this person wants to focus more on crime."  They had remembered all of the issues and political beliefs that Megan and Sam had taught them and were actually considering these things when voting.

On a side note, I talked with JA from morning reading about her behavior and it went really well. While she still thinks I'm being unfair and picking on her, I think she realizes that her actions were rude and unfair to me. Today went so much better and I think that we have a good thing going on. Thank goodness.

*A joy is something positive that you experience or saw throughout the day.  A ripple is when you teach someone something and then they teach someone else the same thing you just taught them.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. " -Robert F Kennedy